I agree, I mean if you know the style, key, composer, and historic period it is fairly easy to know what to expect ahead. You simply wouldn't be playing Brahms to expect a dodecaphonic melody 12 measures ahead.
Alternatively you could just read through every major symphonic work on your own if you have the time... but at least you should listen to them thoroughly since the ear learns faster than the lips and if you can hear what you need to play in your mind it's easier to transer it to the fingers. The thing that helped me learn to "read ahead" or take in more notes at a time is to just visually sightread more complex music. If you can read or understand a big piano etude or orchestral score mentally or in fact work on perhaps Maxime-Alphonse book 5 or 6 or perhaps one of the Chaynes or Bitsch etude books you can easily learn to read quickly. In fact "reading ahead" on classical or romantic pieces for me isn't that difficult since it's pretty much predictable with the style. The tough "reading ahead" is in contemporary music in my opinion, but it usually isn't as complex as some etudes and solo works you'll come across. Which leads me to ponder, why is it that so many players choose to concentrate on "band music" or just orchestral excerpts and not as much solo or etude work? I always believed that solos and etudes could be 100 times more difficult than orchestral excerpts and that usually if you can manage some hellacious solo like the von Weber or even the Schuller duets, Beethoven 3 isn't as difficult really. Not to say that one should ignore excerpts, but to me there is a whole other world out there in terms of solo playing. -William _______________________________________________ post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] set your options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
