What's your method for studying scores?

I'm not too sure if there is/was already a topic like this, and hopefully somebody will roar at me to shut the hell up if so, but, in the case that there isn't, I think the title says it all.

Well, to study it, I listen to the piece at least 3 or 4 times, analyzing all the parts, dynamic, who has the melody, etc. Another way I study them is copying them out on Sibelius (I did it with Sibelius 4th symphony and the Rite of Spring which is currently in the works ;)) The big help with that, despite the midi sounds, is that you can listen to each part on it's own, see how it fits in, and listen to all the details you usually can't hear. It really helps you to learn the piece backwards and forwards. If you are arranging a piano piece for orchestra, or visa versa, you really need to give yourself a day to sit down and listen and play it over and over and develop your ideas of how you will orchestrate/reduce it.

Well, to study it, I listen to the piece at least 3 or 4 times, analyzing all the parts, dynamic, who has the melody, etc. Another way I study them is copying them out on Sibelius (I did it with Sibelius 4th symphony and the Rite of Spring which is currently in the works ;)) The big help with that, despite the midi sounds, is that you can listen to each part on it's own, see how it fits in, and listen to all the details you usually can't hear. It really helps you to learn the piece backwards and forwards. If you are arranging a piano piece for orchestra, or visa versa, you really need to give yourself a day to sit down and listen and play it over and over and develop your ideas of how you will orchestrate/reduce it.

Always copy. :) That is my motto. If you are up till 4 in the morning doing it, so be it. Copy. Copy. Copy.

Make a piano reduction. Transcribe it for different intruments. Make analyzation a part of your creative process!

I disagree with the order of procedure.

Best way to study a score is to review the score in a quiet place and imagine the sounds as best as you can. You will slow down immensely to check the instruments, changes in clefs if it is divisi or not etc. THEN if you have a recording, listen to it. If you do not, score read it at the piano.

Next, copy sections that attract you but be sure to copy at least

1) tutti

2) solo

3) chamber

4) foreground/background midground you like

The problem of course occurs with electronic scores and non traditional instruments. If you can find a score great ... if not try your hand at creating a graphic score and researching how the sounds were produced and any earlier models to check out.

For solo instrumental pieces and vocal works, learn all you can about the instrument before studying the solo work. Same for the voice as well as choral writing.

Oh yeah! Transcription by SOUND, only? That would make you a composition GOD over time if you were able to develop that successfully.

Takes freaking FOREVER.

It does and it is worth it. I recall Stravinsky telling a student -- in a few years you'll hear this piece as I do when he reviewed one of his scores.

But the only way is to practice it.

I just look at the notes on page and the music just comes into my head.

Oh yeah! Transcription by SOUND, only? That would make you a composition GOD over time if you were able to develop that successfully.

Takes freaking FOREVER.

Transcription by sound is really not that hard. I've transcribed and arranged a few Bach fugues without score or sheet music and it didn't take me ages.

Ok, well. Then that's my assumption. I don't learn by ear, I learn by sight. And, my aural senses suck. So, it's difficult for me.

Morivou - If it is any consolation, my transcription/aural skills are nbot at frogslegs level either. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. But you have to work on your weaknesses to improve overall.

For me I do better at two voice transcription than anything else. But not to derail the topic, I score study the way I suggest will help you.

You get use to it after a while. Sight-transposing score-reading is a pain. Not too long ago, that was a REQUIREMENT for an orchestral conducting degree and in some programs, it still is.

Every idea posted here is good. The only "bad" way is not studying at all or relying solely on recordings. Recordings are fantastic; however, you don't truly learn how to conduct it or how the composer notated something. Kleiber changes some things on his Beethoven recordings. I wouldn't have known if I didn't see the score. The other thing about recordings is sometimes tempi maybe too slow.

LOL why would you do that when you have those scores available to you via public domain?

Your right though: transcribing by ear, isn't hard. It just takes forever. And ever.

It's a good skill to have. Also I can't find any Bach fugues for guitar quartet on IMSLP.

I'm grateful to have the skill to transcribe by ear. But I don't use it as a substitution for score studying.

My "method" is to search for the passages I love the most, just to see how did Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mahler or Puccini "built" them, what every instrument is doing, etc. I'd love to transcribe them (you can really get to know counterpoint after transcribing a handful of Bach), but rarely have enough time to devote myself into that (as I'm way too short in spare time to take away from my own works). Sometimes, however, I actually do it (i.e. I transcribed into Finale the 1st mov. of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony).