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Just wondering how prevalent the practice of marking up scores is? I'm thinking in terms of a) reminders on how to play certain sections, etc, and b) perhaps even revising chords or voicings (although I'd think this wouldn't apply to classical music).

Do you mark up scores just when you're learning to play the piece, and then erase them once you're comfortable with the piece? Or are your mark ups permanent?

Thanks.

Hi Newbert, the stuff I'm working on is quite basic but my teacher will make many notations on my music (especially when I'm not playing it well or as she expects). Also, I will usually add additional notes or comments after of my own after she leaves so that I remember exactly what I'm supposed to be working on as the week progresses.

Usually, I will leave the notations on the music in case I need to reference it again in the future I can see what problem spots or interpretations were made in the past.

These days, I usually photocopy the score before starting to mark anything up.

That way, once there are too many marks that have been erased or crossed-out, I can start fresh.

I make copies of my scores, and if I mark the score up, it's usually fingerings.

To be honest I keep most of my stuff electronically and usually just make mental notes (i.e. I remember). When I want to mark something I print it out. My teacher has no qualms about using the pencil to mark fingerings, phrases, etc, directly in his books.

The markings are dense, all in blue pencil, and stay permanently:

fingerings, voicing circled if it is not self-evident, phrasing if needed to be added or highlighted, dynamics either added or circled. For some reason, I prefer < And >, to decr. and cresc., so I add the symbols. Polyrhythms are marked with a vertical line.

Fingerings are one of my Waterloos: so after the are written in, if there is a critical fingering In a phrase that particular finger gets circled as well as a 'critical warning'.

A sea of blue

Heaps. I have a pencil and rubber permanently on the music stand (see pic below) and use it whether I'm just starting, well on the way, or revising. For example I have a piece that's pretty well performance-ready but one dodgy phrase occassionally trips me up. So I worked through it last night and changed the fingering - using pencil markings to remind me. I mark phrases, accents, fingering, pedaling, dynamics... I never ever erase them. My music teacher also uses transparent removable sticky-note tags if there's a persistent problem.
[img:left]http://www.querenciadarwin.com/the-piano-room.html[/img]

>Do you mark up scores just when you're learning to play the piece, and then erase them once you're comfortable with the piece? Or are your mark ups permanent?

Everything that is not obvious.

Dynamics. Fingerings. Slurrings. Voicings. The way to move the hand. Pedaling. Interpretations (down to historic facts I found). Harmonic analysis. Year of composition. Tempo remarks. speed changes.

Usually I don't encircle items, unless I keep missing them over several days.

All in pencil as things may develop over time (other fingerings better fitting new interpretations, etc).

Very rarely, I go to a fresh new copy when I'm near completion

I rarely remove markings. THey all may prove important when you are trying to pick up a piece. I'm playing most from memory anyway so it does not trouble me.


>transparent removable sticky-note tags

Didn't know these exist!

I mark them up a lot. Fingerings, always. Phrase marks most of the time. Chord names some of the time. Technique tips. I (or my teacher) circle the notes I misplay more than once. Blue and pink highlighters for the dynamic markings. And on and on. They become familiar landmarks as I play through the score.

For the most part, I leave the markings there after I'm finished with the piece. They've become the "story" of how I learned the piece and I like the "lived in" appearance.

That's a really nice way of thinking about it, I like it!

Wasnt gonna answer that on yhe grounds that it may incrininate me. But Im in good company!

I will use sticky notes for some things like the last tempo marking I played a piece at. I even have one on a current piece which says "don't look at hands so much"

pencils and rubbers are at both pianos for anything that might be important, usually just fingering, but anything, even if only I know what it means is fair game. I draw the line at spoiling my lovely score with coloured markers, but when I think I really need to use one I will make a copy of the score.

Just recently, I have been writing in fingering, where it's missing to help me along. I was thinking I was playing by numbers, and wondered if this was a bad thing. It really helps me, but I'm not sure it's a good thing to do.
Shey

That's exactly how I feel. Between my own markings and my teacher's notations (of which there are many, in different colors no less) you can look at a piece when I've passed it and really get a sense of what it took to do it.

Although everything is in pencil, nothing is ever erased. I also keep a chronology of the different weeks I've had the piece, including starting, passing, and all weeks in-between...

Hi Shey -- writing in fingerings is a very good thing to develop as a habit. For instance, if you were playing CDEFG in the key of C, you would finger this as 12345. But what if the next note is an "A" that needed to be connected as part of the same phrase of CDEFG? You have no more fingers, and you would need to move your hand to start over...a small break in sound between the G and A.
'

Once you recognize where the music is going, you would play the "G" maybe with your thumb so you could play the A with the second finger and keep the notes in the phrase together.

My teacher describes the 'right' fingering is thinking about where you are and where you need to be-- based on the music. This is not easy for me so I pencil in my plan and take it to lessons for review and discussion.

There is nothing wrong with writing each finger now-- eventually, some things will be more automatic and you can write in what you need to remember as different from what would be expected... maybe in the example, the 1 above the "G" when the next note is an "A"

Hope this wasn't too long of an answer to 'is it cheating to write them in'

Yes, plenty --

I use MuseScore for everything, mark up the printouts, and when they get too messy to read, I transfer the markings to the computer file and print out a fresh one. I try probably way too many different fingerings, and sometimes different chords.... The other nice thing is that I can put system breaks and page breaks where they're more convenient.

I used to write in everything, make marks with highlighters, etc, until this:

When I had to play the same piece, but from a score that has no writing, such as at someone's home, it looked like a different piece of music...all the familiar visual cues were gone, other than the score itself.

Since I have experienced this, and had difficulty playing the piece, I now try to limit markings to necessary fingerings, and occasional notes that are unfamiliar (e.g. high up), and then only write those in with light pencil, so that they are there and can be found when necessary, but do not stand out like a neon sign.

And, I try to erase some of these as things progress to lessen my dependence upon them.

YMMV

This is typical of how much my daughters' scores are marked up.



I noticed that as my daughters got older, their teacher used less and less color in her markings.

Musical things I will usually remember without writing them down. So I usually only write in fingerings because I could never remember them otherwise. My scores are full of fingerings because I want to be able to start anywhere when practicing and figuring out what finger to start with at a certain place takes too much time. Also it often takes time to figure out the best fingerings and I want to save them in case I return to the piece again some day. I use rubber as much as I do pencil, both because in the early stage fingerings change and because I often write them in wrong. My ability to handle and remember numbers is so poor that as soon as I lift my hand from the keyboard to pick up the pencil, I have forgotten which fingers I used... And I often just write 123 when I was supposed to write 321 and I never even notice until my teacher points it out

Yes, write lots of marks and erase.
In addition to everything already listed, I sometimes put a note on the top of the page listing all the things that I just forget in the passion or chaos of a playthrough. Sometimes it helps *shrug*.