Score Reading: A Key to the Music Experience (Paperback)

by Michael Dickreiter (Author) "Are notes, written or printed, really music?..." (more)
Key Phrases: transposing instruments, timpani parts, first violin part, Viola Violoncello, Fifth Symphony, Ninth Symphony (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
The technical is overlaid with informative and easy-to-read history lessons on scores, orchestras, and conductors. -- Library Journal , October 15, 2000

Product Description
Score reading provides insights into the musical structure of a work that are difficult to obtain from merely listening. It can enable one to determine the accuracy of a performance, or comprehend the use of specific instruments. Score reading is a practical skill for musicians of all types; it is essential for a conductor who has to direct a performance, and is routinely covered in musical studies. In addition, many listeners and amateurs derive great pleasure from following a performance with score in hand. Following the score helps them to better understand the intricacies of what they are hearing and thus appreciate it all the more.

Using a warm, yet no-nonsense approach, Score Reading: A Key to the Music Experience demystifies and explains the subject. It informs about the various types of scores and their uses, about their historical development, about the visual appearances of various kinds of notation, about the techniques of following a score, and about orchestras and their conductors. There are practice examples of increasing difficulty taken from scores of well-known works from various periods. The reader may have recordings of these popular pieces, or can easily obtain them. All in all, this is a useful book to all interested in playing music or listening to it.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: Amadeus Press; illustrated edition edition (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574670565
• ISBN-13: 978-1574670561
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #346,666 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One-stop-shopping for orchestral information, February 16, 2001

By	E. Koehler (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book belongs in the hands of every aspiring orchestral musician, conductor, and avocational music-lover. Ambitious high-school students and conservatory undergraduates will especially appreciate the clarity and concision with which Dickreiter (through Pauly's fine translation) illuminates the labyrinth of abbreviations, symbols and page layout details for deciphering orchestral scores. Best of all, the book answers most basic questions about instrumentation (including foreign terminology, clefs and transpositions), performance practice and history, without forcing the reader to hunt down the information in several other sources.

Musicians searching for practice material in reducing scores at the piano will not find it in this book, but they will find a handy reference with a sound review of orchestral history and instrumentation. Aspiring conductors will find a valuable introduction to their craft and all readers will appreciate the clarity of the text which conveys information without the baggage of elitist condescension or that chatty hand-holding which bloats many mass market "how to" or "dummies" books. Several of the score examples employ a format (found in the Norton Scores) that highlights prominent melodic lines with gray shading. This illustrates the dynamics of score reading very clearly for novices.

The chapters are as follows: 1) Introduction, 2) Types of Scores, 3) The Look of a Score, 4) Scores and Their History, 5) Reading a Score - Hearing a Score, 6) Examples for Practicing Score Reading, 7) Orchestras and Conductors, 8) Instrumentation and Score Reading: Suggestions for Further Reading.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Score Reading Book, March 10, 2001

By	"rthone" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

As a Composition and Conducting major, it's a nice, well-written book which reveals a way how to you read a score while listening to it. For real Score Reading purposes ("hacking the Orchestral Score on the piano), I wouldn't recommend it so much because although it consists of excerpts, it's not practical enough because of the format. Probably di Lassus, Bach Chorales and later the "Kunst der Fuge" are still the best way to improve your reading of the clefs before you can start reading a full score using the clefs for the transposition. For everybody who's not a conducting major, it could be a very useful book as an introduction to score reading or actually score listening

4.0 out of 5 stars music made simple, June 15, 2009

By	Samuel Buzzelli (Bridgeville, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an easy read. Meant for those who would like to be able to follow a musical score and enjoy the listening experience. many musical citations throughout the text illustrate what is being explained in the text.