I have always prided myself on being the guy who sight reads every repeat, every D.S, every D.C., every coda sign, every cut, every time. Sometimes this is a challenge - every assistant conductor and every guest conductor has to cut up and change the repeats on the Strauss waltz cycles differently (God forbid the audience should ever hear one all the way through), so those parts have become a museum of erased road maps. But it is something I always try to get - every time, and usually do
But, then there are one, or maybe two charts, orchestra backups to gospel choir tunes, that come around every few years, that have a D.S. al coda plus a D.S.S. al coda, or some such screwy nonsense. I have never figured them out. I have f' it up EVERY time we have played it - EVERY time. Even if I glance at it ahead of time, and think I know what is supposed to happen, which is not always easy to do in these kinds of shows, something about seeing that stupid "D.S.S" when it comes up makes me forget what I'm supposed to do next. I think after the last time that I screwed it up (and I'm not the only one - half the orchestra isn't playing for a bar or so) I looked at it after the concert, figured the map out and counted 8 bars off copying it saved. There are times that repeats are great - a few days ago I went through a 500 measure dance piece I am finishing, put in some repeats (mostly in a soporific section that occurs twice) with "play 2nd X, 3rd x," etc, which saved 60 bars and got some great page turns in for the piano player. And, my main purpose in inserting the repeats was, as D. F. suggests, to alert the chorus that all the music in those sections was the same, so they wouldn't panic when handed a 500 measure piece to learn! So repeats have great value, but that D.S.S, above, blows. Raymond Horton Bass Trombonist, Louisville Orchestra Minister of Music, Edwardsville (IN) UMC Composer, Arranger VISIT US AT rayhortonmusic.com On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 12:06 AM, David W. Fenton <lists.fin...@dfenton.com> wrote: > On 14 Apr 2011 at 20:52, mu...@rgsmithmusic.com wrote: > >> Please consider just writng in out. Repeat pattens, especially >> complicated and nested types, are a holdover from the days when >> everything had to be copied out by hand. Copy and paste routines of >> modern notation software have pretty much eliminated the need for >> repeats. Your musicians will probably be grateful to play straight >> through rather than have to keep track of a complicated "road map". >> Sure they can do it and, if they're good, the performance will not be >> weak "at the seams". Why not just let them concentrate on making >> really good music rather than finding their way. > > Whenever this subject comes up, I always chime in to point out that > repeats also serve an analytical purpose -- they tell the player > "this is not new music -- it's EXACTLY the same thing you played > before". When you write it out, you're hiding that fact. > > I'm certainly not calling for complicated repeats, but I certainly > think that they have a place, particularly in familiar forms, and > when they don't require page turns back. > > -- > David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com > David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > Finale@shsu.edu > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
