Notice everything on the page

I’ve been watching Mozart in the Jungle recently and it reminds me, sometimes, of some of the conducting classes that I took while at Berklee College of Music.

One of my teachers Ronald Feldman would have us sit in a circle in a room and read through and study scores. While studying scores the first step was always to notice everything on the page. We would list out loud things that we noticed in the music. We’d say, “I see eighth notes. I see forte symbols. I see crescendos. I see D major. I see 3/4.” That’s how we’d start studying our scores.

It can help tremendously because we make sure we see everything on the page. We saw every detail and symbol and then we could figure out what was happening in the music. But we needed to notice everything first and there’s often a whole bunch of different markings on the page; too many to notice immediately.

So take some time and notice everything on the page first. Start there.

ISJ