Crash Course in Accompanying

I am a far better accompanist than I used to be, but I am still learning and fine-tuning my methods.  Through the years, I have learned a lot from my mistakes.  I have dropped a few notes, skipped a few bars when I got lost, and played a major chord instead of minor.  I have had bad page turns, or pages that got stuck, or discovered that the lighting was so poor I could hardly read the notes.  I have jumped the gun because I misinterpreted the downbeat with an unclear conductor, and I have even failed to read my own instructions in the music a few times.  Everyone knows these mistakes are embarassing.  We want to do anything to avoid them.  Fortunately, I wisened up about score preparation and have changed my strategy when it comes to accompanying.  You may be surprised that I don't emphasize physical practice at the piano very much at all.  Here is my crash course in accompanying:

1.  Listen to a recording of the piece.  Scratch that.  Listen to several recordings of it.  Youtube is such a gift to our generation.  Use it!  The first thing I try to do now is listen to the piece before rehearsing it.  But you must listen while reading the score.

2.  Sing the parts along with the recording.    For choir music, pretend you are soprano and sing the whole soprano part.  Then sing the whole alto part.  Do the same with the mens' parts.  Do this while reading the score.  I don't care how badly you sing.  Just hum along while listening if you like.  This way you will be very familiar with the parts and part-reading/ open-score reading won't be so hard when the director/ conductor asks you to do it.

3. Check for difficult page turns.  Locate the repeats, DS al Fines, and DS al Codas.  If they require you to turn backward more than one page, or forward more more than one page at a time, ask for a page turner, or make a copies in reduced size that you can tape together.  You don't want any of your back-turns or multiple page turns to de-rail you in rehearsal or performance. 

4.  If you're turning your own pages, write in all your page turns, at the bottom right of the previous page.  This is so, so important!  I write in the upcoming 2 or 3 chords and the harmonic rhythm (how often the chord changes, like every half note, for instance).  This has saved me from many errors over the years.  If you own an iPad and you do a lot of accompanying, you may want to look into the Air Turn, a foot pedal that turns music pages you have scanned or uploaded to your iPad.  If you do go with the Air Turn, any music purchased on musicnotes.com may be synced to your iPad.  I don't know about you, but I'm excited to try this soon!

5.  Write in all the chords of the accompaniment.  At the very minimum, you will want to do this in sections that are in difficult keys, like 6 flats.  Now do you see why I emphasize mastering music theory?  This practice has also saved me from many botched measures.  Even if I don't get every detail in the rehearsal, I try to play the right chord.

6.  Analyze any open score sections for chord progressions, and write in the chords and inversions.  (Open score is defined as a musical choral or orchestral score in which each part has a staff to itself).  Open score reading is the most difficult form of piano reading.  You are reading four separate staves at one time, and I know very few people who can do this well.  If you write in the chord progressions, it will give you a shorthand of sorts to help you keep things flowing in rehearsal.

7.  Practice the ending first.  Why?  Because it is usually different than the rest of the piece, and has specific timing issues, such as ritardandos or fermatas.  I was once accompanying a piece for a community chorus and I failed to look at the ending.  We I got there during rehearsal, the chords changed very quickly.  I didn't know the rhythm of the chord changes because it was kind of unpredictable, and I botched the ending.  The director was not very undertanding with me, and I learned my lesson!

8.  Then, if you have time, practice.  Honestly, most accompaniment literature is not physically challenging.  Physical practice should truly be the last thing you do.  When you do have time to physically practice, focus your practice on the ending, difficult keys within the piece, and transitions between keys.  These are the parts your conductor will expect you to have down!

I hope that helps you in your accompanying adventures.  Share with your students!  Most students don't realize the importance of mental practice and study!  I would love to hear how you prepare for accompanying.  Maybe you have suggestions I didn't think of.