[Guidelines to a course I teach at the New School Jazz Program.]
Reading a new score is a gradual process. No one can read all the lines at once--the human mind just won’t take in all that information. So a score must be studied, layer-by-layer. As each composer is different, we examine their specific notations, motivic ideas, harmonic language, orchestrational elements and more. The process is a bit detective-like. We tread slowly, sleuthing out many details, putting the big picture together as we go.
General Approach To A New Piece
1. Read the instrumentation first. Imagine the overall sound and the physical presence of this ensemble in a big studio. Is the score in concert or transposed? (Most are transposed.) Absence of key signatures does not necessarily mean the piece is in concert. It may require some further examining--comparing chord symbols to horn lines, etc. Listen/look for the logic.
2. If a recording is available, listen to the full piece and follow the score in a very general fashion. At first simply let your eye jump around. Rather than following one line, move all around, looking for where the “action” seems to be in each passage.
3. While listening again, take a pencil and look for the prominent melodic elements; mark them lightly with little m’s. Listen yet again, and as you’re becoming more familiar with the content of the piece, look for accompaniment figures, counterlines and any other distinctive elements. Mark these with any shorthand of your choosing. (You could use bg for background, cp for counterpoint, etc.) Often one element is orchestrated on a variety of instruments and appears on several lines. Simply catch and mark what you can. Later notice the others.
4. Now without listening to the recording, glance through the score slowly, including your own notes. Just study the shape of the piece. Ask these questions:
What is the structure of the piece?
(If it’s a traditional kind of jazz piece it may be an AABA or ABAC tune with an intro, head, solos, modulation, shout chorus, coda, etc.)
What is the period and style of the work?
What are the main motivic ideas? What is the harmonic language like?
Where does the piece seem to peak? Is there one clear climax or several?
5. Listen again, feeling the music itself more and more. Jot any additional notes to yourself. Use an X or a ? to indicate places you want to go back and explore further.
Singing and Playing--finding the actual notes
Now that the general shape of the piece is getting clearer, it’s time to locate actual pitches and harmonic contents.
It’s best to have some keyboard skills. However, if keyboard is not your strong suit, there are other ways to go. Use the tools that are easiest for you. For example, sequencing on MIDI can be helpful. Or if you’re a vocalist or horn player and have a multi-track mixer, you could play various lines onto tracks, with click. Study the content as you go. In any case, try to enjoy the fun or the process itself--it really is a bit like solving a mystery.
1. In the same piece, find a single line pitched in concert key (16 bars or less at first). Play it on a keyboard or instrument of your choice. Observe dynamics and phrasing. Then sing it. Singing is particularly revealing for horn parts, string parts, vocal parts. Even if your voice is not trained, try to phrase like the instrument you’re reading and imagine its sound.
2. Find a 2nd line, still in concert. It can be on an adjacent or separated line of the score. Play both lines on a keyboard (or multi-track them as explained above). Next, play one and sing the other. Then reverse which is played/sung. Start out of tempo at first, then work up to tempo. All the while--even if some notes are missed--continue to imagine the sound of the actual instruments, as best you can.
3. Next, do #1 and #2 with lines from two transposing instruments. At this point you may first want to go to the next page on transposition and study that process. If transposing is new to you, start with 1 transposing line and 1 in concert. Later proceed to 2 lines transposed to the same key. Later still, 2 in different keys. Please don’t be concerned if you must go slowly, one note at a time. Like anything, it all improves with practice.
4. We’ve been working horizontally, next we’ll proceed vertically. Take 4 lines in concert and play a few chords, reading top to bottom (4 Tbns in a Big Band chart is ideal for this). Then do the same thing with 4 transposed instruments in the same key (4 tps is good). Just play a few chords to get used to reading vertically. Listen closely to see if your ear tells you there may be a wrong note; if so, patiently try to find and correct it. Play more chords, now imagining the actual timbres. Also, sing the lead line while playing the others. Then sing all 4 notes of the chord, top to bottom. Check with keyboard as you go.
5. At the beginning we explored the broad strokes; now we’ve begun looking at the small strokes. As difficult as the transposing may seem at first, you’re now doing real score reading. Next, put the recording back on. Stop at the places you’ve just been playing, and listen several times to these passages, observing more and more about their content. Occasionally sing along, matching pitch and phrasing. Then listen to the whole piece again from the top and just enjoy the music.
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