Reading and Analyzing: Saving Time in Rehearsal
by Ralph Hultgren

Do you remember Mr. Band Director from my last article in Kjos Band News? Well, he is asking some questions of Ralph Hultgren and what score reading and study is all about.

Pressure!
Guilt!
No time!
Yes, yes, yes! I know!
I guess I should look at those scores!
Hmmm……..Yankees 5, Cards 3
No, no, no!!!

     Those scores!! The ones that Aussie said I had to orient myself to, then read, analyze, and then interpret. Yeah, well he teaches in college and he obviously doesn’t know the time commitments on the school band director! He has the time! He doesn’t rush from class to class or even from school to school like some of us do!
     I have all that teaching to do! Then there are the parents’ meetings, the staff and administration meetings at school, commitments at the Boy Scouts and with my other community groups, and he says I need to take extra time to look at those scores! What about my family time? Doesn’t he realize I have to spend all that time preparing for my classes? People forget that a teacher has to spend so much time outside of school preparing for classes. You know, so many people forget the extra time we teachers spend outside of the normal hours that others work. We spend those extra hours (that we don’t get paid for!) preparing so that the students have the best experience in band!
     Does he realize how much time we have to commit to that?
     Does he realize we have no time for the academic niceties he goes on about!
     Why, I can’t spend the time doing what he says I should do because I have to prepare for class. I have to study those scores I am doing for contest!
     Hmmm…………..
     Well, let’s see. Read and Analyze: what could he mean?
     Hi, Mr. Band Director!
     I am not trying to add to your responsibilities. What I am attempting to do is let you know how to make your rehearsals and performances more effective. If you can have a more complete overview of the art that you will present to your ensemble, then there is more chance that they will present that art effectively in performance.
     So how do we set about that more complete overview? We discussed in the last newsletter the need to consider orientation to the score. That is the capacity to interface with the composer’s intention by understanding not just the musical language but more of the composer and their artistic and cultural context. Following from that, we actually need to pick up the score and investigate those dots and dashes and, given our new orientation, set about understanding more of the intent of the writer, which will lead us inexorably to an interpretation of the work.
     We must read and analyze the score in this process. The score’s musical secrets will unfold before us if we take the time to search them out, but it is most important to be aware that such an investigation is not wasted on time you don’t have. It is actually a means to effectively utilize the precious time you have in the rehearsal. Be assured that every moment taken up by reading and analyzing the score will be repaid in the rehearsal room. I am not talking about an onerous addition to your time commitment but a means whereby you can more substantially intersect with the musicianship in the score and your students.
     So, how do you read a score?
     There are many approaches to score reading that can be found in textbooks and in talking to colleagues. Such a diversity is not a reflection of a lack of clarity in respect of the process, but more a confirmation of the breadth of artistic ideas and approaches in practice.
     Here are a number of ideas to consider. Individual conductors may like to use these thoughts to assist them in their score study, but be sure to adapt them when you feel there are ways you may more effectively connect with the work in your hands.
     Read it like a magazine or journal to begin. Don’t necessarily try to take it all in, but allow yourself to be drawn to those areas that you find interesting and engaging. Some will be drawn to rhythmic figures, some to melodies, and others to harmonic constructs. I am intrigued by counterpoint and orchestration, but one person’s interests are not pervasive. You should not be afraid of your bias here!
      When we open a journal we are taken by the articles that are closest to our hearts and then we slowly investigate the other contributors’ works. Eventually we get to those articles that we know we should read! They are like the vitamin supplements my wife gives me! I know they are good for me (like the salad she makes me eat), but I wouldn’t choose them as my first preference. Similarly, those areas of the score that don’t intrigue us, or that we find less comfortable, are the components we may well leave to consider in more detail later.
     Sadly, they are vital components of the whole musical fabric of the art we are investigating (just like those vegetables), so we must intersect with them. It is imperative that we read and then analyze them. When we allow ourselves to do so, we often find a fullness and a sustaining in that work that had escaped us previously. Also, we have a balance in our appreciation and future interpretation of the piece that will sustain the ensemble and us through the trying times of rehearsal. Those engaging and intuitive facets are mixed in with the less palatable to give us artistic nourishment (I quite enjoy salad now too!).
     What is vitally important here is that our appreciation and understanding of those less intriguing areas, through analysis, gives a broadness to our overall concept of the work only if we investigate the satisfying and more easily approachable components similarly. Because we more comfortably embrace some sections of the score doesn’t mean we understand it (I embrace the salad maker but still don’t understand him or her!). If we are to have a truly satisfying relationship with the work we must come to terms with and honor what makes those intuitive facets so attractive as actively and intellectually as we pursue our understanding of those difficult-to-fathom areas. The satisfaction of finding the composer’s intent, in the fullest way possible, allows for potent interpretation.
     Well, asks Mr. Band Director, Fund-Raiser, Chairman of the Church Council: how do I analyze a work when I finally find the time to do so?
     It should not be a surprise to find that there are just as many, if not more, ways to engage in analysis as there were in reading. Textbooks on conducting, when considering analysis, take their terminology from the forms we were familiar with in university study. Harmonic structures, form, thematic and melodic components, and so forth are the foundations on which much analysis is based.
     Though not wanting to be seen as presumptuous by questioning such established analytical paradigms, I do believe it is important to change our perspective at times. This allows us to find new ways of discovering the composer’s intention and to then bring that to fruition through performance.
     Consider for a moment harmonic structures. We have a propensity to analyze harmony vertically. We have been taught from our mother’s knee that harmony is a vertical construction, but delve into your history notes and consider for a moment how harmony evolved. Most often, even in young band works, satisfying harmony is a direct result of effective contrapuntal writing.
     I do not suggest here that if it isn’t Bach, then it isn’t good. My contention is that we need to be able to shift from our mindset that harmony is vertical and appreciate its linear origins. Consider for a moment that in a vertical analysis we might conclude that a chord is a C major 7th. In balancing that chord in rehearsal we have to decide what is the most important note or notes. Is it the C, for without it the chord is not a C chord; is it the E, for that gives the chord its minor or major quality; or is it the B, for without that it is not a major 7th?
     In this situation and many similar, the question that should be asked is what proceeds and follows the chord. Therefore, what are the melodic and rhythmically active notes. The context tells the truth about what is the important note. It is then reasonable to contend that the C major 7th chord may well have been formed as a consequence of linear writing. Arguably, then, we could conclude that a purely vertical analysis may not inform us as to what are the vital harmonic components, because such harmonic components may be transitory and serving a melodic or rhythmic purpose.
     In Pioneers, my latest work for young band to be released in the USA, the second beat could well be argued to be an implied major 7th. The second beat of the second measure presents a similar implication. When viewed within the context of the whole work, those two notes (and implied chords) obviously form a motific construct that is the genesis, in inversion, of the main theme. There is no doubt that those notes could be considered to be the implied chords noted above. To plan a rehearsal around an investigation that is predicated on such a vertical analysis would be to deny the melodic imperatives inherent in this work in particular.
     The mid-section of Pioneers has a more obvious harmonic structure. Here it would be easy to suggest that a vertical analysis would inform the rehearsal method. Interestingly, an insight into the composer’s method here tells us that the melody came first, then the bass line, and the harmony came out of what was implied in both.
     When we view the work in its entirety, we can see that the melodic and motific structures noted permeate the first and third sections. The middle section is of a more lyrical and expressive character. If we now consider form as a part of our analysis, we can see that the work is ternary with an introduction and coda. How much more effective would we be if, through analysis of the form of the piece, we were able to construct a rehearsal plan that takes into account the similarities of both the A sections of the ternary form and the motific similarities in the introduction and the coda. Admittedly, at this level the transparency of form and harmony makes for a more easy analysis and subsequent rehearsal structure, but the fact remains that without analysis, the rehearsal plan could not make use of the time savings available through effective and efficient rehearsal methodology.
     What I suggest here in respect to reading and analyzing the score is one person’s view. I do believe there is much to be considered outside the formal structures we have all been taught, but most importantly, whatever our method, we must allocate time to reading and analysis. To not do so actually impacts adversely on our time management, stress, pressure to complete and achieve, and on our level of guilt about what we do and believe we should do.
     Contemplate my views and try them. Consider adapting them to your own personal style and be adventurous enough to develop your own ideas and experiment with them. Be assured, I have been to the point of despair trying to find the time to do what I suggest here. Be assured also that, when I find that time, the rewards in rehearsal and performance are incalculable.

Ralph Hultgren is Director of the Wind Symphony at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and lectures there in Conducting, Arranging, and Instrumental Music Curriculum.

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