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Hi all,
Is the 'Music Minus One' series of books any good? Is the score easy to read, etc? Noticed these were on the expensive side, and wanted to check they were worth the price tag before buying.

The scores are fine. The problem that I have discovered is that some of the orchestras used are substandard with major intonation problems.

Before you buy, check with your local library to see if they have any or can get them through interlibrary loan. I know that the Indianpolis Public Library has a number of them.

I've got several piano concertos from MMO and I have found it to be a very useful tool for preparing a concerto for performance.

The scores are fine but not as good as some you can buy on your own. You may run into a problem with the alphabetical measure markers used for rehearsal. MMO letters did not always match the orchestral score measure markers so I had to sit down with the orchestral score and write them into mine.

The cost of a set buys you two CD's plus the score. One CD has the complete concerto (piano and orchestra) plus another rendition of the concerto with orchestra only. The second CD has the complete concerto (piano and orchestra) plus another rendition with orchestra only - but at a slower tempo.

I found working with the MMO CD's extremely useful. When you actually play with an orchestra, they follow you, but with the recordings, you really have to keep strict tempo to match the orchestra. This was a good learning experience for me. It also made very familiar with what the orchestra was doing. During one rehearsal, I lost my place. I was able to find it very quickly because I had listened to the orchestra so much, I knew exactly where they were. This was also very helpful during the performance because the dynamics and melody shifted back and forth between piano and orchestra and I had become very familiar with that dialogue.

If you are using MMO to imitate an actual concerto experience, you might find it disappointing because the orchestra does not respond to you. However, as a study tool, it is terrific.

One other suggestion. If you are preparing a concerto for performance, be prepared to have the tempo altered by the excitement of the performance. When I played the Bach D minor, we had rehearsed about about 80 BPM. I kept asking for a faster tempo but the youth orchestra conductor refused. Fortunately, I had practiced with a Perahia recording that was pretty fast, because at the performance, the conductor got excited started at about 100 BPS. I was able to keep up.

You are an even more formidable musician and technician than I had realized; to be able to go from 80 BMP to 100 BPS. Wow!

[Just teasing, of course!]

Cheers!

Oops! Ha ha. My hands were truly a blur. (In science I'm always dealing with seconds. I made the mistake out of habit!)

When my son was preparing to play his little Haydn concerto with a local orchestra we tried using MM1, but our experience was not as good. The rigidity of the orchestra's tempo is helpful in a small way, but not much more so than using a metronome. And it was problematic in the sense that it's not quite how things will go with a real orchestra and a real conductor. Also, as people have noted there were only two tempi provided for the orchestra. I would describe those two tempi as ... well, too fast and too slow!

The top speed was faster than the orchestra cared to go and the 'practice tempo' was quite a bit too slow for him. The disc got shelved pretty fast.

He was only twelve, so that was probably part of the problem. I suspect a more mature musician can make better use of it.

Hey, are you calling me old??? (Kidding).

I think the key thing to remember with MMO is that it is a tool. The best thing that comes from working with it is that it builds a familiarity with the orchestra, its entrances and its voicing. I agree that there are tempo problems. With the Bach I thought the slow recording was too fast and the fast recording too slow. I don't think it is possible to find a tempo that will satisfy everyone, but they were decent practice tempi.

Playing the piano is so solitary, the MMO recordings made me comfortable with being part of an ensemble. I found it really prepared me for the real thing and I was grateful for the confidence I gained from it.

Well, you did confuse BPM and BPS, didn't you!

You're right about entrances and exits. That helps, especially if you don't happen to have two pianos and two players at your disposal.

I purchased the Grieg Concerto. The score was nice enough and laid flat without to much coaxing. (staple bound instead of glue) I don't know if larger pieces are bound differently. My initial reason for buying it was the realization that I'll never play with an orchestra, however I found it hard to time myself to the recording. I'm sure pieces that have more shared time between the piano and orchestra are easier to negotiate. I picked the Grieg on the reputed ease of the piano part itself and didn't think to consider this. It seems nice for practice but it didn't fit my desires. I probably should have consulted this forum for a concerto that is relatively easy yet more of an embellishment to the orchestra.

even funnier because BruceD misspelled it as BMP!

Music Minus One has been around for a long time, and the merchandise has been continuously updated as the prevalent media for recorded music have evolved.

I thought it was interesting that the OP asks specifically about the scores, as I was unaware that anyone would be buying this product for any reason other than the recordings. It's nice that a score is included, but it's not necessarily going to be an edition that would be one's first choice as a study score.

It may be worth mentioning that the contents of different packages may vary. As far as I'm aware, not all sets include a slow-speed practice version.

Steven

Thank you all so much for your help and advice - always excellent on this forum.
Sounds like a (qualified) thumbs up for MMO. Will have a go at the Mozart 21 - not too original I know

(I know it is a bit odd to ask about the scores - I have a bit of a thing about bad quality scores. Playing the piano well is hard enough without the wretched score being too small to read, or refusing to lay flat on the music desk. Am fast turning into a Henle snob).

Thank you all again for your helpful advice.

I wasn't even aware that Music Minus One had any competitors, but Amazon.com just sent me an e-mail that Mozart's K. 466 is available for pre-release ordering in Hal Leonard's "Classical Play-Along" edition.

This is the descriptive blurb at the Hal Leonard webpage for this series:


I bolded the last sentence because I expected it to be especially relevant, given the specific problem some people have described with the MMO products.

Unfortunately, the range of titles in the Hal Leonard line is very limited (at least at present). The product descriptions aren't nearly as thoughtful or comprehensive as at MMO, either. Perhaps this is a new venture for HL and, as such, is a work in progress.

Steven

WOW! That has always been my beef with MM1. The inability to adjust the speed without altering pitch. Unfortunately, they seem to have very few titles available at this point. I can't imagine that the demand is really high.

BTW, if it's for PC and Mac users, that about covers the ground, doesn't it?

Thanks Steven, I'm going to check this out.

I guess us Atari and Commodore users are screwed again.

BTW, you can use Audacity to change the speed without changing the pitch. (for MM1)

Never used Audacity. Is it an easy process to mess with pitch or is it fairly complex (except to a technophile)?

... and I'd like to see you try using Audacity on your Commodore! That would indeed take ..... um, audacity.

As Danton said, "... de l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace!"

Once you "rip" the track from the CD and then open the resulting audio file in Audacity, changing the tempo is straightforward (via Effect > Change Tempo from the menu bar).

Steven

Interesting. Is this a program that works on a Mac, or will the Mac programs (Garage Band or iTunes) do this as well? Pardon my techno-ignorance.

According to Audacity's home page, there's a version for Mac (and other platforms, too).

When it comes to the functionality Mac-specific programs, though, it's my turn to be techno-ignorant.

Steven