Rehearsal letter
Encyclopedia
A rehearsal letter is a boldface letter of the alphabet
in an orchestra
l score
, and its corresponding parts, that provides a convenient spot from which to resume rehearsal
after a break. Rehearsal letters are most often used in scores of the Romantic era, beginning with Louis Spohr
. They may also be generically called rehearsal marks or rehearsal figures, or when numbers are used instead of letters, rehearsal numbers.
numbers, every 5 or 10 bars, or at the beginning of each page or line. But as pieces and individual movements of works became longer as the Romantic era progressed, bar numbers became less practical in rehearsal.
For example, a conductor can tell his musicians to resume at bar 387, so that the musicians have to find the nearest bar number in their parts (e.g. 385 or 390) and count back or forward a couple of measures. Even if the number 387 is written at the appropriate bar, it might not particularly stand out. But if there is, for example, a big, bold letter M in the score and parts, it's much easier for the conductor to just say "letter M." Even if the conductor were to say "one bar before letter M," that would still be more convenient than saying "bar 386." Alternatively the conductor could first say "before M" and allow the players time to find M and then say "One measure."
In the score of a full orchestra, rehearsal letters are typically placed over the flute
s' (or piccolo
's) staff, and duplicated above the first violin
s' staff. For concert bands, rehearsal letters are placed over the piccolo's staff (or flutes'), and over the trumpet
s'. Rehearsal letters should appear in every part, but the conductor or librarian should check this and also make sure that they agree with the conductor's score; if they don't, the letters from the parts should be copied to the conductor's score. For typical pieces or movements of the Romantic era marked allegro, the letters A
to Z
can be used up, though the letter I
, J
or O
(or all) may be skipped. For slow movements, approximately the first half of the alphabet might suffice.
Placement and frequency of the letters do not follow a hard-and-fast rule. Generally they are inserted at places where there is a musically significant change, for example a new theme, or a change in dynamic or instrumentation — just those places where a conductor might want to restart in rehearsal. In addition, having the letters double as musical signposts can help players who are counting rests confirm they are still in the right place, which would not be possible if the marks were placed at numerically regular intervals.
The letter A is almost always used for a point close to the beginning, but not for the very beginning itself because it is much easier to say "from the beginning". Likewise, rehearsal letters are not necessary at tempo or key changes, as the new tempo's (or key's) name can serve the same purpose. For example, in some editions of Beethoven
's Ninth Symphony
, letter A of the Finale does not occur until bar 140, when the relatively late entry of the first violins with the "Ode to Joy" theme might not stand out enough to the other players to be a convenient point of reference, whereas the reminiscences of the previous movements are more easily referenced by their tempi than by either bar number or rehearsal letter.
A rehearsal letter usually breaks a multimeasure rest in a part, except of course in cases where a given instrument does not play at all in a given movement of the work.
Because rehearsal letters are sometimes independent of edition and in some cases even version, they are also useful for telling applicants for positions in the orchestra what passages they need to play at the audition. And they are also useful for easy reference in scholarly essays about orchestral works. However, rehearsal letters are altogether absent from some editions of some pieces that have them in other editions, such as the older editions of Wagner's Meistersinger prelude.
Rehearsal letters might be used in chamber ensemble music, but they would have very little point in unaccompanied instrumental music (such as the solo piano repertoire), since the instrumentalist wouldn't need to communicate to a fellow player where to resume playing. For songs, it is more useful to refer to the lyrics of the song to indicate where to resume rehearsal (except of course in songs where the lyrics consist of a single word or phrase repeated dozens of times).
's Symphony No. 7 in C major
presents one unusual case: the letters A to Z (including both I and J) are used up after the wind rip with just three more pages left in the score. For the final flute and bassoon solo, the editors use Ö
(capital O with umlaut) as a rehearsal letter.
But in the case of some composers, such as Gustav Mahler
and/or Dmitri Shostakovich
, twice through the alphabet might still not be enough. For this reason, some editors prefer rehearsal numbers to rehearsal letters. Mahler's and Shostakovich's scores use rehearsal numbers rather than letters. These are typically in bold and enclosed in a box, or less commonly, a circle. Confusingly, however, some editions enclose bar numbers in boxes, though they're usually not boldface. In the Schirmer edition of Roy Harris
's Symphony No. 3
(in one movement), the rehearsal numbers are enclosed in circles, and they occur every ten measures, actually being the bar number divided by 10. That rehearsal numbers "are easily confused with measure numbers" is a reason sometimes given in favor of rehearsal letters.
Advocates of rehearsal numbers counter that even 26 letters are not enough for some scores. Whereas rehearsal letters "reset" for each movement of a multi-movement work (even for connected movements), rehearsal numbers typically run over the course of the entire work, even if the movements are not connected. For example, the rehearsal number for the last few bars of the first movement of Edward Elgar
's First Symphony
is 55; the first rehearsal number of the second movement is 56.
There are exceptions, however. The final outburst in the first movement of Mahler's Second Symphony
is rehearsal number 27. Mahler actually wanted a pause of five minutes before the next movement, so the rehearsal numbers reset to 1, ending with 15. The third movement follows after a short break, but its first rehearsal number is 28.
For jazz and pop compositions with several choruses, "many jazz composers and arrangers" use a format in which "each successive verse/chorus part of the form is assigned successive letters of the alphabet" combined with a measure number: for example, letter A for the first 8-bar phrase of the verse after the introduction, A9 for the next 8-bar phrase, A17, A25, then B, B9, B17, B25 for the chorus, etc., with the special rehearsal marking TAG for the tag ending.
The 2008 version of the Finale notation program by default provided rehearsal letters A, B, C and D, but the 2009 provides all A to Z.
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
in an orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l score
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
, and its corresponding parts, that provides a convenient spot from which to resume rehearsal
Rehearsal
For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...
after a break. Rehearsal letters are most often used in scores of the Romantic era, beginning with Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...
. They may also be generically called rehearsal marks or rehearsal figures, or when numbers are used instead of letters, rehearsal numbers.
Overview
In the course of rehearsing a piece, it is often necessary to stop and go back to some point in the middle, in order to master the more difficult passages. Many scores and parts have barBar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
numbers, every 5 or 10 bars, or at the beginning of each page or line. But as pieces and individual movements of works became longer as the Romantic era progressed, bar numbers became less practical in rehearsal.
For example, a conductor can tell his musicians to resume at bar 387, so that the musicians have to find the nearest bar number in their parts (e.g. 385 or 390) and count back or forward a couple of measures. Even if the number 387 is written at the appropriate bar, it might not particularly stand out. But if there is, for example, a big, bold letter M in the score and parts, it's much easier for the conductor to just say "letter M." Even if the conductor were to say "one bar before letter M," that would still be more convenient than saying "bar 386." Alternatively the conductor could first say "before M" and allow the players time to find M and then say "One measure."
In the score of a full orchestra, rehearsal letters are typically placed over the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s' (or piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
's) staff, and duplicated above the first violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s' staff. For concert bands, rehearsal letters are placed over the piccolo's staff (or flutes'), and over the trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s'. Rehearsal letters should appear in every part, but the conductor or librarian should check this and also make sure that they agree with the conductor's score; if they don't, the letters from the parts should be copied to the conductor's score. For typical pieces or movements of the Romantic era marked allegro, the letters A
A
A is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.- Origins :...
to Z
Z
Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal...
can be used up, though the letter I
I
I is the ninth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:In Semitic, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative in Egyptian, but was reassigned to by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound...
, J
J
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
or O
O
O is the fifteenth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.The letter was derived from the Semitic `Ayin , which represented a consonant, probably , the sound represented by the Arabic letter ع called `Ayn. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a...
(or all) may be skipped. For slow movements, approximately the first half of the alphabet might suffice.
Placement and frequency of the letters do not follow a hard-and-fast rule. Generally they are inserted at places where there is a musically significant change, for example a new theme, or a change in dynamic or instrumentation — just those places where a conductor might want to restart in rehearsal. In addition, having the letters double as musical signposts can help players who are counting rests confirm they are still in the right place, which would not be possible if the marks were placed at numerically regular intervals.
The letter A is almost always used for a point close to the beginning, but not for the very beginning itself because it is much easier to say "from the beginning". Likewise, rehearsal letters are not necessary at tempo or key changes, as the new tempo's (or key's) name can serve the same purpose. For example, in some editions of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Ninth Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
, letter A of the Finale does not occur until bar 140, when the relatively late entry of the first violins with the "Ode to Joy" theme might not stand out enough to the other players to be a convenient point of reference, whereas the reminiscences of the previous movements are more easily referenced by their tempi than by either bar number or rehearsal letter.
A rehearsal letter usually breaks a multimeasure rest in a part, except of course in cases where a given instrument does not play at all in a given movement of the work.
Because rehearsal letters are sometimes independent of edition and in some cases even version, they are also useful for telling applicants for positions in the orchestra what passages they need to play at the audition. And they are also useful for easy reference in scholarly essays about orchestral works. However, rehearsal letters are altogether absent from some editions of some pieces that have them in other editions, such as the older editions of Wagner's Meistersinger prelude.
Rehearsal letters might be used in chamber ensemble music, but they would have very little point in unaccompanied instrumental music (such as the solo piano repertoire), since the instrumentalist wouldn't need to communicate to a fellow player where to resume playing. For songs, it is more useful to refer to the lyrics of the song to indicate where to resume rehearsal (except of course in songs where the lyrics consist of a single word or phrase repeated dozens of times).
Usage in the 20th Century
In some cases, A to Z might not be enough. After Z, Aa may be used, followed by Bb, and so on until Zz (though Ii, Jj and/or Oo might also be skipped). The Wilhelm Hansen edition of Jean SibeliusJean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
's Symphony No. 7 in C major
Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius)
The Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105, was the final published symphony of Jean Sibelius. Completed in 1924, the Seventh is notable for being a one-movement symphony, in contrast to the standard symphonic formula of four movements...
presents one unusual case: the letters A to Z (including both I and J) are used up after the wind rip with just three more pages left in the score. For the final flute and bassoon solo, the editors use Ö
Ö
"Ö", or "ö", is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut to denote the front vowels or . In languages without umlaut, the character is also used as a "O with diaeresis" to denote a syllable break, wherein its pronunciation remains an unmodified .- O-Umlaut...
(capital O with umlaut) as a rehearsal letter.
But in the case of some composers, such as Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
and/or Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, twice through the alphabet might still not be enough. For this reason, some editors prefer rehearsal numbers to rehearsal letters. Mahler's and Shostakovich's scores use rehearsal numbers rather than letters. These are typically in bold and enclosed in a box, or less commonly, a circle. Confusingly, however, some editions enclose bar numbers in boxes, though they're usually not boldface. In the Schirmer edition of Roy Harris
Roy Harris
Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an American composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No...
's Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 3 (Harris)
Roy Harris's Symphony No. 3 is a work written in 1939 and premiered by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky.Harris wrote this symphony on a commission from Hans Kindler but he gave it to Serge Koussevitzky instead...
(in one movement), the rehearsal numbers are enclosed in circles, and they occur every ten measures, actually being the bar number divided by 10. That rehearsal numbers "are easily confused with measure numbers" is a reason sometimes given in favor of rehearsal letters.
Advocates of rehearsal numbers counter that even 26 letters are not enough for some scores. Whereas rehearsal letters "reset" for each movement of a multi-movement work (even for connected movements), rehearsal numbers typically run over the course of the entire work, even if the movements are not connected. For example, the rehearsal number for the last few bars of the first movement of Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
's First Symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Elgar)
Sir Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 55 is one of his two completed symphonies. The first performance was given by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter in Manchester, England, on 3 December 1908. It was widely known that Elgar had been planning a symphony for more than...
is 55; the first rehearsal number of the second movement is 56.
There are exceptions, however. The final outburst in the first movement of Mahler's Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...
is rehearsal number 27. Mahler actually wanted a pause of five minutes before the next movement, so the rehearsal numbers reset to 1, ending with 15. The third movement follows after a short break, but its first rehearsal number is 28.
For jazz and pop compositions with several choruses, "many jazz composers and arrangers" use a format in which "each successive verse/chorus part of the form is assigned successive letters of the alphabet" combined with a measure number: for example, letter A for the first 8-bar phrase of the verse after the introduction, A9 for the next 8-bar phrase, A17, A25, then B, B9, B17, B25 for the chorus, etc., with the special rehearsal marking TAG for the tag ending.
The 2008 version of the Finale notation program by default provided rehearsal letters A, B, C and D, but the 2009 provides all A to Z.