On 2 Oct 2012, at 1:00 PM, Robert Patterson wrote: > One could discuss all day longs things that singers should and should not > do. I think books have been written on the subject. But they are beside the > point here. > > What I am saying is, if you want the best performance out of the most > number of singers, I highly recommend providing a C score. I have paid the > price for not so doing and I won't make the same mistake twice.
Robert is absolutely correct here! This is my experience, even with well-known, successful singers, even those who have sung a lot of contemporary music. They simply want to be able to quickly find their pitch from the score, and if they are constantly checking to see who is playing and remembering what that instrument's transposition (at the moment, for scores with switching instruments), it can seriously disrupt a rehearsal and/or a performance. The best singers, if you give them a transposed score, might just ask you to make a C score for them. I'm talking about non-tonal music here. Conductors keep their eyes on the whole thing all the time. Singers have their own part, but in performance need to look out at the audience as much as possible, so they jump back to their score for quick reference to their part as well as the other instruments, often jumping from instrument to instrument for a reference pitch. They also have to think about dramatic projection, etc. Why make their lives more difficult, or increase even by a couple of hours the time needed for learning and rehearsing? My solution is to create a C score for the singer and a transposed score for the conductor. Everyone is happy, no one is confused. David Froom _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
