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Understanding an FF marking might refer to the sound required from the section/ensemble, not from you

I have trouble understanding when players in other sections use the excuse "I was waiting for a cue" when missing an entrance after a period of rest. It's nice and dramatic when a proper cue is delivered, but never an excuse for not making an entrance when a conductor is inconsistent with cues.

In very amateur groups, the conductor must spoon feed.

In higher level groups, the conductor should mostly supply visual cues to the audience; the players should know the list bloke referenced.

The end result of conductor motion could be identical.

doesn't help when a lot of music just says "ff" for minutes at a time.
in really high-endy ensembles the dynamics can be redone numerically and by section.

I'd rather have podium spoon-feeding than conductors who say "i just hold the stick" and make a point of having everything organically happen by some magical collective instinct. Even if I don't like his musical taste I'd rather have SOMETHING happening.

Great Post!

Pro groups - yeah all of the above as a minimum standard.

Community groups - you are lucky sometimes to get people to even look at the conductor in order to receive what is being spoonfed to them.

Only thing I would add to the list is excepting any other specific marking, notes are to be held full value*. Some players assume that no marking means they can do whatever they want. * - See posts above for what to do (and not do) with the full value of the note.

Knowing the function of ones own note in ensemble chords and adjusting ones dynamic and intonation accordingly.

One of my simpler rules in that context caused med troubles in a reading of a of some transscribed soundtrack that I didn’t know the original of. That simple rule is about going easy on the fifths of chords, just giving them enough to reinforce the root by creating low difference octaves of that root. But in this transscription the fifth was intended as a dramatic off-balance note meant to create some sort of unrest. Would have been nice, if the dynamic written in my part had indicated that function. A text asking to bring that note to the foreground would have been nice also.

Klaus

There is no substitute for actually learning the piece as a whole and how your part fits into it. We do that with "repertoire" but of course on concerts that are not mainstream subscription events, we rarely have a choice and hence do the best we can, and in many cases that translates into "shooting from the hip." There is a wonderful book by H.L. Vandercook called "Expression in Music" still published by Rubank for @ $5.00 or so. In it are exlained all the tricks that were used by the master players in the 19th and early 20th century as far as emphasis vs de-emphais, long and short notes, phrase shaping and the like. HOWEVER it was relayed to me (by a former member of the CSO) after a lecture I gave on 19th century performance practice at a Historic Brass Society conference, that all those elements of style were sumarily beaten out of most orchestras from the 1950s onward, in favor of a more homogeneous style of just "playin' the page." Reiner and the CSO were prime. Is it no wonder that modern players often do not have a clue in the difference in interpreting say, Tchaikovsky from Berlioz, or Beethoven from Wagner? But in todays orchestra world, those subtle differences have given way to lazer sounds, deft rhythmic treatment, and playing every note as long as the inscription on the page dictates. That approach does make things a bit simpler, less rehearsal time on actually coming up with a bonafide interpretation, thus a more cost effective budget for the orchestra members. "Play the page."

Sadly not as ebook:

https://www.amazon.com/Expression-Music ... 1423489179