# How do you analyze scores?



## mpalenik (Sep 17, 2015)

So, first a little bit about me and what I'm trying to do. I'm not a professional musician, but I took piano lessons from the time I was 2 until I was 18 and was in choir all through school until college. I took two theory classes for non-music majors in college, which weren't very in depth and took some piano composition lessons from my old piano teacher the next summer.

I didn't really do any composing after that until I was in my second year of grad school, about 4 years later and I bought Kontakt and started messing around. The stuff I wrote at first was not even remotely like anything an orchestra could play, a lot of string pads with block chords, etc., although I got a little better after I recorded some orchestrations of music from Disney's Beauty and the Beast for a kids' production at my old teacher's music school.

Since then I've gradually been getting better--I just did some music for a short animated film that I'm putting together with some people--most of it has semi-realistic orchestration (aside from a few tracks that aren't meant to). I've looked over the online Rimsky Korsakov's Orchestration at Northern Sounds, but haven't read it in depth and have a few other books that I haven't even cracked into.

What I'd like to do is start analyzing orchestral scores to get a better idea of how to write better orchestral music. In the past, I've glanced at a few but really only tried to pick things up by ear. Currently, I just started looking at parts of Die Walkure, but I'm not sure exactly how people proceed with this sort of thing. My plan so far is:

a) Transcribe the score. I'm doing this in C partly because I think the practice transposing is good and partly because I'm having fun playing with Staffpad to transcribe it, but I don't think it can handle stuff like "horn in E".

b) Write in the chords

c) Maybe do a piano reduction at the end

I want to know what else people do when they look at a score. What do you look for? What should I try to be aware of?


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## JohnG (Sep 18, 2015)

mpalenik said:


> What do you look for? What should I try to be aware of?



Well, I look at high quality orchestral music like Die Walkure or the Rite of Spring or Beethoven's 3d symphony or Ravel or what have you as an extremely delicate house of cards. Change one little thing and it's diminished, sometimes even wrecked.

So in my mind the answer to "what should I try to be aware of?" is "everything," if you are trying to hit a high artistic standard.

If, by contrast, you are just looking for a job, the standard is a bit different, but nevertheless just about as much of a challenge, with the additional requirement that one has to please the producer / director /editor / editor's girlfriend...etc. 

Are you wanting to do "big movie / game music" or more concert stuff?


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## mpalenik (Sep 19, 2015)

I'd like to understand concert stuff better. I'm not really concerned with getting a job, since I have at least a year left of being a physicist (another year of my postdoc, after which, the way things are going in general these days, I'll probably have to either do something else or an endless string of postdocs, but I'm getting off topic). And I realize I asked kind of a vague question.

I guess I'm partly not even sure what things there are to pay attention to. I mean, I can write down the chords and try to understand the chord progressions, and I usually notice things that I already know are supposed to be the case, like the bases usually double the cellos, except in fast passages, when they tend to go away, etc. I suppose "why these instruments here" is a good question to ask, although I can't always answer that.

I think I am learning some things just from copying (even if it's just the meaning of Es and B in a German score), but I feel like I could get more out of it if maybe I had an idea of some things that I should try to make sure I understand. And transposition and doing a piano reduction are good skills to work on, I think, but I'm not sure if this is actually helping with my goal of learning orchestration/instrumentation or whatever I'm trying to do (I guess improving general musicianship is part of what I'm trying to do). I'll probably see if I can do some kind of mockup from the midi output of Staffpad as well, at some point, although that's lower priority.

I know there are gaps in my knowledge and sometimes it's easier to ignore them than to see them, so maybe there are questions I should try to force myself to answer? I know there's not going to be a formula exactly, but I guess I just wonder what kinds of things people are usually aware of.


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## all ears (Sep 19, 2015)

Check out http://vi-control.net/community/thr...dying-an-orchestral-score.39444/#post-3802602 and look for Dave Connor's post. What he describes has been most helpful for me.

Also, Norman Ludwin's pdfs are great for guiding you through score analysis.

And, if you really want to make some solid progress: be sure you know about music theory. But any recommendation on what you need for that would greatly dependon your current level of knowledge.


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## Black Light Recordings (Sep 19, 2015)

John and "Ears" are right on. I kinda like Mike Verta's approach as well. He talks about the three things you need to understand a composition: Hear it, put it under your hands, and put it on paper. My ear has always been pretty good; my theory is getting stronger, put my playing sucks. What I've found to be useful is to start of simple, and short. Take eight bars of a piece you know is pretty simple. Transcribe it and mock it up if you have the time. It's not the same as hearing a real orchestra play the piece but it can help. I just did this, this morning:



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