Posted by Kirsten Gibbs Last updated 7th February 2019 reading time
One of the beauties of having a score is that there are no excuses for not playing it.
Playing it and discovering that a particular combination of notes is impossible to produce is fine – as long as you tell the composer. Refusing to play a section because you think it will be too hard, or because you ‘don’t like the look of it’ is not.
A musician wouldn’t expect to be paid, or to stay in an orchestra for long if they persisted in behaving like this.
Why should anyone else?
Of course this works both ways. Every musician that contributes to produce an experience audiences pay for, should share in the profits as well as the applause.
