THE ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR
105
| Divisi (div.) (divide, i.e., let some of the players take one of the two tones indicated and the remainder of them the other one. This direction is of course used only in case two or more notes appear on the staff for simultaneous performance. It is customary to divide such passages by having the players seated on the side next the audience take the higher tone, while the others take the lower. If the section is to be divided into more than two parts, the conductor must designate who is to play the various tones.) |
SCORE READINGReading an orchestral score is a matter for the professional rather than for the amateur; and yet the great increase during recent years in the number of amateur orchestras probably means that more and more of these groups will continue their practice until they are able to play a more difficult class of music—this involving the necessity on the part of their conductors of learning to read an orchestral score. For this reason a few suggestions upon score reading are added as a final paragraph in this chapter, and an example of a score is supplied at the end of the book—Appendix B (p. 166.)
The main difficulties involved in reading a full score are: first, training the eye to read from a number of staffs simultaneously and assembling the tones (in the mind or at the keyboard) into chords; and second, transposing into the actual key of the composition those parts which have been written in other keys and including these as a part of the harmonic structure. This latter difficulty may be at least partially overcome by practice in arranging material for orchestra as recommended on page 101; but for the first part of the task, extensive practice in reading voices on several staffs is necessary. The student who is ambitious to become an orchestral conductor is therefore advised, in the first place, not to neglect his Bach during the period when he is studying the piano, but to work assiduously at the two- and three-part inventions and at the fugues. He may then purchase miniature scores of some of the string quartets