Score study changed my life. Before I went to UW-Milwaukee and studied with Sharon Hansen, I would routinely learn the music along with my choirs. If it was something big and/or hard I would look at it ahead of time, play through it at the piano… but not really have a plan to learn to understand it, let alone to understand how to teach it. When I learned how to really study a score, it changed my whole idea of what my job is as a choral conductor.
Now that I am spending much of my time working on virtual choir videos, I am again realizing how key it is to know the score. The videos I watch that really appeal to me cut to the tenors when they have the melody, help me focus on the soloist, and allow me to feel the drama of the build to a climax. How do we make the choices that allow the video to enhance the audio rather than just accompany it? Look at the score!
The biggest influence in the score for video editing is how and when the instruments and voices are used. As I mentioned, make sure the viewer is always watching something active – soloist vs accompaniment, melody vs. ooh, primary theme vs. secondary theme, etc. – but also help them understand the sound as we want them to hear it. I talked about panning in my last post, and suggested that it makes sense to pan the voices similarly to how we would position them within a live choir. We can do the same thing with the video. A homophonic section that would sing best in mixed formation? Mix the singers on the screen. A fugue? Create groups of singers that fade in and join as their part does. Call and response? Maybe columns of sections singing back and forth to each other. Be creative, but be intentional. All of that information is in the score to find before a single edit is made on the computer!
Another big influence is dynamics/phrase trajectory. Using the zoom function to expand or contract the visual scope of the ensemble can aid in these movements in the music. Have an intimate section? Rather than showing the whole choir, fade from single singer to single singer, or in groups of four. Create the visual environment that draws people in and lets them have a more personal experience connecting to an individual.
One final idea to take from the score is the mood of the piece. I’ve seen calm music that feels frantic because the video changes too much, and exciting music that loses something because the video hasn’t changed in two minutes. Increasing or decreasing the rate of visual change can help with the flow of the mood.
I have made every mistake mentioned in this post. That’s how I learned. And I’m still learning a lot. But by remembering to let the score be my guide, I’ve been able to avoid falling into these traps again and again, just like in live performance.
Have ideas about how the score can help with video editing? Please let me know in the comments!
Paul H. Thompson 