Yes!

Hear hear. It’s too bad banning page turns during the music isn’t practical in concert settings too, but it’s wild to me that composers are commonly so lackadaisical about it as to be okay with losing half the section in places they didn’t mark and that are chosen based on a concern that has nothing to do with the way the music sounds. It seems at least as bad to me as writing wind music that doesn’t take into account the need to breath, but gets much less recognition as such.

Yes, start fresh there.

I generally do not have to worry about them hitting the wrong note and intonation problems usually sort themselves out. I spend more time tightening rhythms and working on the ends of phrases. But I do have be able to find wrong notes in the score or make changes, re-orchestrate or even compose something on the fly so being at one with the score is important. Plus, if the players started to doubt your abilities, you could lose them. But many people hire me (or any conductor or orchestrator) to help them through. Knowing the orchestra inside and out is not a pre-requisite for landing a major score these days. So, I would not worry about it, but if you were to do an orchestral gig, maybe get another conductor or have someone in the booth who has the skills you don’t so if something does come up, it can be sorted.

When you conduct, how important are your music (sight) reading skills? I studied classical guitar at the conservatory of music a long time ago, anything other than the G cleff still makes me pause for a second; never mind transposing instruments where I literally have to look at transposing tables and write down the note names to figure out what’s going on. Sibelius is fantastic in getting everything correct on paper with automatic transpositions, using the right cleff etc., but obviously when you’re on the stand you are on your own. I can usually tell when something is off but in some modern music, e.g. with free tonality, it is sometimes really hard to tell and if a horn player would hit a wrong note I might never notice. Can I just trust that the players are top pros who will get it right and will correct themselves, so I can focus primarily on the ‘big picture’ (the overall score and the film)?

Thanks!

Thanks!

Hi Jeremy, good question. I have found that if I go crazy marking up everything, the score ends up a mess. We make a lot of changes. Even the best orchestrators can not totally get inside the composers head and nail every dynamic so it is really common that dynamics and hairpins get massaged, sometimes several times. I like to keep the score clean so when I put the changes in, I am not having to get rid of my redundant ones. The one time I will mark it is coming into a page turn. If the next section is a dramatic change in dynamic, I will mark it so I know how to lead them into it and don’t look like an idiot when it goes to solo flute and I am still asking the strings for more!