Musical Excerpts

The audio examples provide the beginning conductor with an aural representation of every musical excerpt in the book. They present preliminary models for students to use as first steps toward conducting rehearsing and interpreting music. Although they can help establish an aural concept of the score, the audio examples may be slightly different from the notated excerpts in dynamics, style, or accustomed interpretation. Thus, the student must do more than imitate them as a model performance; score study is essential to establish a valid aural concept. A conductor must first discover, to the best of his or her ability, the composer’s intention—the expression or meaning of the music. Individual musicianship and personal interpretation are encouraged as long as the student can demonstrate the chapters’ competencies.

Individual and transposed parts can be downloaded as PDFs directly to a computer, tablet, or smartphone.

The part files are provided for classroom performance and include all instruments from a standard full orchestra score. Transposed parts minimize music-reading errors and save rehearsal time in classes of mixed instrumentation so that instruction can focus on the specific conducting techniques to be mastered.

In the four-stave excerpts in the book, each staff represents soprano (part 1), alto (part 2), tenor (part 3) or bass (part 4) voicings. The following chart indicates the part assigned to each instrument.

The instrument part files are available only for the instrumental excerpts. The choral excerpts are complete in the book.