Yesterday I mentioned Bruce Childester’s The Trumpet Blog as one of my recommendations for online brass resources. A short time ago he had a great post on “How to Mark Your Trumpet Music” that I wanted to recommend. He offers examples of several standard practices and other suggestions about how to mark music appropriately.
Some of his points I’d like to reiterate include only marking your music in pencil, so it can be erased. Also, circled music means “tacet” (lay out), not look carefully at this. Many music students will circle things they want to remember, but I encourage everyone to get used to only using circles to mean tacet. You never know when you’ll need a sub last minute. Your substitute may need to sight read a performance and might assume that circled parts mean lay out. On the flip side, you don’t want to be the only one barreling through something you were supposed to lay out on because you didn’t know what that circle means.
One piece of advice I’d like to add to Bruce’s is the use of a dash and number (e.g. “-2”) over notes to indicate exactly when the note is released. It’s common for students to release notes too early, so I often have them mark a whole note, for example, with a “-1” to remind them to release the note after all 4 beats (on the downbeat of the next measure, or off on 1). It’s also useful for effects like “doits” and fall offs (“-3” to mean fall until the 3rd beat, etc.).
While you’re at it, poke around a little at The Trumpet Blog. There’s lots of good stuff in there.
