Score-Reading Part 1: Your Visual Ear

[@MehdiD.Ardebili]

We are so so privileged to live in this age as musicians. We can listen to all our favorite pieces of music as much as we please and freely. We can freely access the scores of the great composers... There is truly no excuse to indulge in the study. It’s all there handed to us on a plate, quite literally thanks to imslp and youtube. We are so incredibly fortunate. We must all take advantage of it.

[@LongTran-ws3oi]

Thank God I found a great resource here in this channel in 2021 and from Vietnam. Thank you very much Thomas!

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Watch all the videos in the series. Listen very carefully to all your favorite works, and read their scores while you listen. Get a very good memory in your mind of what those works sound like - run through them mentally without listening. Then do that while looking through the score. Repeat many times, and eventually you'll start to hear the music just by reading - but you must also do bucketloads of sight-singing and ear training. And don't expect it to happen overnight. It took me years.

[@johnkiunke5617]

Reading a score is having a composition lesson with the composer. There's no excuse not to be a great composer this day in age when scores and recordings of any major piece are readily available. Read scores consistently, every day, and read every piece at least 3 times, and you will be a great composer. Provided you actually buckle down and compose every day too.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Can you remember, in detail, a piece of well-known orchestral music? If you can play it through in your head, then you can imagine other pieces that have not yet been composed. As to training your ear, there is just no shortcut. Score-read, sightread music on your instrument, sight-sing, and every other thing that makes your ear stronger. And remember that it takes years to get to the Mozart level, but never give up because the rewards are more than you can imagine.

[@samzero6795]

i can do exactly what your saing here in this comment but i can't identify the notes in my head in another meaning i cant relly know what im hearing although i can easily tell what instrumen is playing and everything else but the not the notes, please help me plzzzzz

[@hom2fu]

@@samzero6795 i can orchestrated in my head and write it down by reading lot of sheet music. if you don't have the talent, then you will need to practice harder. no way a symphony can write in the head. orchestration is like directing traffic.

[@TheClassicalSauce]

Thanks for your videos! This is invaluable to me. I didn't go to music school but I love making orchestral music! Thank you!

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Absolutely. That's my whole point. Beethoven was stone deaf when he composed his last three symphonies, not to mention the last quartets and piano sonatas. Mozart composed straight out of his head on his billiard table. Saint-Saëns stood in an empty room at a lectern and composed operas, concertos, and symphonies. I compose and orchestrate in my head. I hear what needs to be notated before I write it. Sometimes I workshop the piece mentally; other times it all comes rushing out.

[@csm120]

You Sir, are better than many professor that I had!

[@peterreynolds8146]

How true plus I look at a score as a “graphic representation of Sound”. Harmonic, melodic & rhythmic.

[@sorartificial]

Your channel is underrated

[@shawndavidevans]

Wow - this is very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to put together this series.

[@enzocypriani5055]

This series is so absolutely useful for me! Thank you so much!!

[@Gorboduc]

Whenever people would ask William Steinberg "How can you just sit down and read a score?", he would always reply with "How can you just sit down and read a newspaper?"

[@hornuser]

Great Video Tom, I look forward to watching your whole set! I agree and believe all of the great conductors and composers are literate in these ways. Also, many of us musicians are working to gain and refine these skills and many of our students and young colleagues could use help improving them. I appreciate your work very much. Also, I recently asked Danail Rachev how many hours he score studies daily, he said 6. He is the assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Philharmonic. You are right.

[@remedyz0802]

Another great video! Your production quality and content is perfect as usual. I am going to start score reading every day, its something that I have not stressed enough in the past.

[@patricechang7803]

Thank you so much for this video and all of your other videos! life-changing

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Hi there - no, the only way my compositions get generated is entirely in my mind, which has a first-class orchestra living in my imagination, ready to try out whatever I throw at it. Once me and the orchestra have worked it out, I enter it directly into Sibelius, and then move on to the next commission.

[@samzero6795]

but please tell me how you know what note your hearing ??

[@Rookblunder]

I just got my Rachmaninov Symphony 2 and will begin reading and listening. This is going to be great.

[@huanzhang4555]

I love that Matisse painting behind him

[@Osteele]

Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience with us. I appreciate it immensely. Have a wonderful weekend.

[@annikadevogue8008]

This is absolutely amazing! I've learned so much from this one lesson already!

[@annikadevogue8008]

How much theory analysis would you reccommend on a score? (labeling chord names, Tonic Dominant functions,etc)

[@musicfriendly12]

@@annikadevogue8008 Old comments, but I'd say not too much, if it's somewhat simple tonal music I think it's way more important to listen than to look at the notes, I think a beginner should learn to hear what a dominant chord sounds like before they can fluently look at the score and tell you what the chord is. So I'd say you should spend at most half the time compared to score reading, so basically I'd say a great goal could be 1 hour score reading and 30 minutes analysis per day.

[@Fetrovsky]

Hello. I am pretty good at looking at a single staff and figuring out what it should probably sound like. When I have two staves, I can get by. If I have a full orchestra score, I just have no idea what's going on unless I examine each staff or group of staves. Is this normal? If not, do you have a tip for developing some sort of a "wider" musical eye?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

+Daniel Jesús Valencia Sánchez Yes. Score-read a lot of piano music, then score-read piano+solist (violin/piano, cello/piano, flute/piano, etc.). Then score-read quartets and quintets. At that point you can read a string orchestra score. Then read wind trios, then quartets/quintets, then octets, and then classical symphonies with smaller orchestration (strings plus timpani and winds 0202 or 1202). Then gradually go forward from there to the Late Classical and Early Romantic.

[@Fetrovsky]

Thank you!!

[@emilygclarinet]

I've played that Borodin symphony and I never knew it had a name. Nice piece. I learned a bit about playing scores on the piano in university, but I was never very good at it.

[@nutelina]

Very nice, thank you! Do you use software to also generate your compositions? There are really great physical modelling and sampling sw out there and I'd really like to play with it but I don't think these instruments can read a score... :-)

[@Nammedit]

Hi Thomas, just a question regarding one's inner ear: If a person has the ability to reproduce an orchestral piece of music they've heard before in their head, can this person then also learn to use this "inner" orchestra as the person wishes? For instance doing pure mental orchestrating with confidence?

[@Nammedit]

Another question: Do you have any specific tips or exercises to gain control over that "inner" orchestra? Does just trying to write orchestral music with only your mind as a tool help?

[@Maxpianoplaying]

Your videos really helped me, thanks a lot !

[@rumbidzairimayi3185]

thank you so much for this. keep making more videos :-)

[@patrickpoe]

I think it's just melancholy ... I have a lifelong dream - to write music for movies, but now in Russia, even a good teacher is hard to find... But most likely you're right, I know too little about the composers of his country! Thanks for the lessons.

[@freepagan]

Hi Thomas, what about your own pieces? Are there any recordings of your music we can listen to online? I'd love to hear them. ~Alan

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Hi! Check my channel for the playlist titled "Thomas's Music." There's a sampling there of the many many pieces I've scored, which I often don't have the rights to upload due to union restrictions and licensing.

[@ilkinond]

It's also true that different composers have different ways of working, right? Stravinsky had to have a keyboard but stressed that he didn't want the piano to be very good - in case he started to 'listen' to it. Interesting stuff and I wish I had an inner orchestra.

[@Harlem55]

It is incorrect to say that a piano part is not the same as reading the full score - the two are the same conceptual thing - the one merely being significantly shorter than the other. In fact JP Sousa wrote many of his marches in short score format of two or three staves with the entire thing printed on roughly the size of a large index card. Many today might think these are written piano parts apart from the form's odd use of stave text.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Apologies, I'm not sure if you're responding to something in the video or a comment below. I can't seem to find a statement like that in the video (which I just watched to check, it's been a long time since I made this!). Short score writing is something that I both teach and practice in my work, so I'd be the last to downplay it. All the same, some piano parts from greater orchestral works don't reflect the entire content of the work - and I strongly recommend that those who orchestrate piano works adapt the music rather than strictly transcribing it. See my Orchestration Challenge playlists for more.

[@alleballeism]

@OrchestrationOnline thanks ive been wondering for over a year :) thanks alot

[@carmelogaa521]

Thank you Thomas!

[@OrchestrationOnline]

My pleasure, Carmelo!

[@b.m.4345]

OrchestrationOnline When is is too late to start this?

[@googlekopfkind]

what if i read a score without hearing the music i mean what if i only learn to imagine ? can i train my visual ear to that point that i can read and IMAGINE orchestramusic ? are u able to do this ? how should i learn to imagine not to follow only the score

[@janjozsefbuis1541]

I love how the first score i ever downloaded was of Borodins 2nd Symphony, and he starts the video off with it.

[@maxcohen13]

What's the name of the first piece that' starts this video?

[@NiclasThobaben]

Was that Hector Berlioz Symphonique Fantastique at 7:43?? :)

[@asudie_]

Such a useful video. I m greatful.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

I'm as mortal as they come. If I can do it, I'm sure most other composers can as well.

[@alleballeism]

whats taht piece that plays at 5:40

[@Nammedit]

I should've rephrased; is this something "mortals" can learn?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

@alleballeism Borodin Symphony No. 2 "Bogatyr," just like most of the other cues in the video.

[@heavenbaby06]

Hello Mr. Goss! Thanks to this very video and to you, I've already made huge progress with my ear, though it is hard, I love working at it! Now that being said, I do have a question about expectation and time-management: let's say one is to practice 12 hours a day, how much estimated time, or should I say years can one realistically expect to get to the level of score-reading Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, up to 20th century Piano music, and then up to the orchestral works such as Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Holst's Planets, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring? I know it might be hard to answer, and it took you years, but I guess I'm still asking because of financial resources at the moment and I would want to have the right attitude about it! Thank you again so much Mr. Goss for this series of lessons! You are such a generous and kind soul ! Alexandre.

[@whatislove4587]

I am a beginer want to become a good composer, which sight singing solfege do you recommend: fixed do or movable do

[@OrchestrationOnline]

I use moveable do. But it doesn't matter which you use. That is a side issue. What will make you a great at solfege is constant practice.

[@whatislove4587]

@@OrchestrationOnline Thank you very much. I thought that which solfege I choose would effect the efficiency of "hear by reading", now I know it's a side issue.

[@NathanBLawrence]

Why wait for someone to commission a film score from you? You can always begin to have fun expressing yourself and tinkering around writing orchestral music on your own. In my opinion, experimentation and making mistakes is the best way to learn. You can get a lot out of videos like this (I sure do), but ultimately, you have to work to develop your own individual taste and style.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

@NiclasThobaben Yes, well spotted!

[@ryanhorwitz417]

What is the name of the composition at 3:06?

[@FocusMrbjarke]

Reminds me of firebird by stravinsky

[@RoOodOoOloOmeg]

ey thanks for the video. You know, I'm quite sure of something... you really like and enjoy Borodin =). Good choice, I love his polovitsian dances.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Borodin Symphony # 2, "The Bogatyr."

[@Nammedit]

I hope you're right, thank you for the inspirational response. Now, if you'll excuse me; I have some ear-training to do.

[@rachelzimet8310]

Thanks for including a shofar :)

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Shofar that is one of the oldest musical instruments. ;-)

[@rachelzimet8310]

@@OrchestrationOnline and when He invented it Hebrew it

[@VasilBelezhkov]

3:25 - our Bulgarian voices :)

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Oh, that's not true! I've heard several young neoromantic composers from Russia whose careers seem promising. Maybe we will soon have a new Mighty Handful. Don't close the books just yet, tovarisch!

[@patrickpoe]

Сейчас так даже в России не могут писать, как во времена Царского правления! Ох, что же с нашей страной сделал коммунизм (((

[@ctsr1117]

At least John Williams’ still alive

[@danielmillardmusic]

Sounds like he sped up Scriabin's symphony there at the beginning

[@OrchestrationOnline]

No, that's Borodin Symphony no. 2. I usually list all my featured music in the credits of each video. :)

[@danielmillardmusic]

OrchestrationOnline You're right. I was thinking Scriabin, for some reason. Which performance did you use?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Can't recall - I have a series of sources of public domain recordings I use - it's probably one of them. I made this so long ago...

[@sc26574]

learn like a child! 3:16

[@jayjaylozano.cloudysundaesmile]

Literature

[@alleballeism]

whats taht piece that plays at 5:40

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Borodin Symphony # 2, "The Bogatyr."