# Who scores modern music? (assuming the band has not done it) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [May 21, 2023, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366 "2023-05-21T19:34:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/61 "2023-05-23T12:30:43Z")
That doesn’t make sense. If @Disinfectus’s girlfriend was bringing “all those details that are in the score to life faithfully,” why couldn’t he have learned them from listening to her play? ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/62 "2023-05-23T12:35:43Z")
I don’t believe it is possible to give a perfect rendition of what is in a score by listening to someone play and copying it. I believe _a lot_ must have been lost somewhere between score \> ex’s interpretation \> Disinfectus’ imitation. ---
**Author:** ![Disinfectus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/disinfectus/32/11085_2.png) [@Disinfectus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disinfectus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/63 "2023-05-23T16:11:42Z")
Of course it isn’t possible. Who said I played it perfectly or was even trying to do so? And after four decades of being a professional musician, I’m pretty sure I understand the point of sheet music. I was just sharing a story. Geez. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/64 "2023-05-23T18:01:45Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah, and there’s no real reason why classical music shouldn’t have aspects of ear-training and improvisation taught with it. Classical musicians were historically very good at that kind of stuff. Adding some anecdotes. I played trombone from elementary grade-5 through undergrad college. We learned the music by reading the sheet music. A lot of focus on being able to play well after a few minutes looking over of the sheet. The director would keep everything together. Of course the actual performances would have an academic quarter of practice. I also played in the marching band. That was all memorized. You’d practice a bit from the sheets, and refer to them later if you weren’t sure about something. But everything was out on the field. The director might be waving and shouting, but was mostly out of vision and out of hearing. The band was held held together by the drum corp. And your brain just automatically snapped into the 8-count. (I happened to be walking by the local high school when the marching band was practicing, and without realizing it at first, I was stepping in time to them. Weird what gets baked into your sub-brain.) My kids play violin, learning through the Suzuki method. It’s very much ear-focused, rather than sheet-focused. They learn new songs by hearing and singing them, not reading the music. They didn’t even get a violin for the first six months, using a cardboard cutoff to hold while singing their songs. Eventually they progressed to reading music, but even still it’s more for reminders than active reading. They are resilient to disruptions while playing and jump back in easily. Very different from sheet-trained violinists, who they occasionally play with. However, improvisation is not something they do. They do get some exposure to fiddling and blues, though. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/65 "2023-05-23T22:35:07Z")
The _Oxford Companion to Music_ says that > The improvised cadenza largely disappeared in the 19th century, when composers tended to write out what they wanted to hear. Beethoven instructs the soloist of the ‘Emperor’ Concerto not to improvise but to play the provided cadenza. One of the last concertos to leave a pause for an improvised cadenza was Brahms’s Violin Concerto (1876). ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/66 "2023-05-24T03:49:29Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > (I happened to be walking by the local high school when the marching band was practicing, and without realizing it at first, I was stepping in time to them. Weird what gets baked into your sub-brain.) Hehe, and that goes back into my answer of memory being important for musicians who aren’t reading from sheet music or a chart or anything. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve started a song and thought “Damn, I have no idea how the chorus or the bridge goes. It’d be awesome to have a chart handy. Good luck, everybody!” Sure enough, when the drummer plays the cue for the change, I miraculously remember it and follow the change flawlessly. Memory is weird. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/67 "2023-05-24T04:42:56Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > “Damn, I have no idea how the chorus or the bridge goes. It’d be awesome to have a chart handy. Good luck, everybody!” Sure enough, when the drummer plays the cue for the change, I miraculously remember it and follow the change flawlessly. Memory is weird. I do not play a musical instrument but this seems like remembering the words to a song. If asked to recite the lyrics to many popular songs I listen to I cannot do it. Start playing the song and _poof_…I remember the lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/68 "2023-05-24T07:34:33Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > I don’t believe it is possible to give a perfect rendition of what is in a score by listening to someone play and copying it. You’d be surprised. Some people have the aural equivalent of an [eidetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory) or “photographic” memory, such that they can remember music after hearing it just once, and, if they play the same instrument, can play it back perfectly or nearly perfectly. It’s very rare, but there are people who can do it. I knew a guitarist who had that ability in his youth. He played without a pick, so the music was polyphonic, with distinct bass and treble lines, and he could do it with up to about a minute’s worth of the same style of guitar music. He’d lost most of that ability by the time I’d met him, when he was in his late 50s, but his memory was still so sharp that I eventually had to ask if it was “photographic.” ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/69 "2023-05-24T10:25:50Z")
I have no doubt that some people can do that and it’s undoubtedly impressive. I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure. But that’s not the point I was trying to make. When you imitate someone’s interpretation of a piece, you are blind to the reasons that compel the player’s interpretative choices because you do not know what’s in the score. If the player makes odd or mistaken choices, you just copy the oddities and the mistakes without even realizing it. Basically, it’s like a Xerox copy of a photograph of a landscape. You recognize an indirect, doubly-filtered view of it. As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet that Disinfectus would have played the piece differently if he had worked directly with the score (what piece was it, by the way ? Debussy’s one of my favourite composers, especially his piano works). But nevermind. Sorry for the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/70 "2023-05-24T16:29:37Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > I have no doubt that some people can do that In your preceding post, you said you didn’t believe it was possible. > [@Moonrise](#): > > When you imitate someone’s interpretation of a piece, you are blind to the reasons that compel the player’s interpretative choices because you do not know what’s in the score. If the player makes odd or mistaken choices, you just copy the oddities and the mistakes without even realizing it. No, most musicians with a little experience can tell if a single note is wrong. There are anecdotes about it happening, as if it were some impressive feat, and it’s really not a big deal. A long time ago, most of my learning was through transcriptions, and I came across mistakes and knew they were mistakes just as soon as I verified that I was playing the (wrong) notes as they appeared on the page. It will just sound wrong (most of the time, depending on the music, of course). IMO, it’s comparable to language. You hear one odd mistake or regional variation and it stands out. But I think we’re talking about two different things, and we’re definitely straying from the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/71 "2023-05-24T18:11:22Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > In your preceding post, you said you didn’t believe it was possible. It is possible to pick some music by ear. I don’t believe you can faithfully render everything that’s in a score by ear. /hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/72 "2023-05-24T18:42:44Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > It is possible to pick some music by ear. I don’t believe you can faithfully render everything that’s in a score by ear. Actually, I did that, back in college symphonic band. After a few rehearsals, I had the music memorized. I didn’t even count rests. I could tell when to resume playing by listening to the rest of the ensemble. That’s how studio musicians find work. ---
**Author:** ![Disinfectus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/disinfectus/32/11085_2.png) [@Disinfectus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disinfectus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366/73 "2023-05-24T23:39:07Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > That’s how studio musicians find work. I’ve enjoyed many years of professional studio work based on that skill alone since I’m not a great reader. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-scores-modern-music-assuming-the-band-has-not-done-it/984366.md?page=3)