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In the Army, I learned that French military marches are THE WORST in the world for stupid, impossible roadmaps.

Regarding parts markup, our 2nd trombone used colored pencils all over his parts. I use colored Post-It tabs on mine. Something like this works well. They can be had in all sorts of sizes and shapes.

Post-It tabs…

My thanks for the support - distinguished support too - of marking pieces up / adding assistance. As is usually the case multiple ways of doing functionally similar things are available and local conditions can influence choices. It really is a case of seeing what alternatives work for you and then shamelessly pursuing solutions.

My earlier posts were with a view to offering ideas and dismissing the concept of ‘cheating’, I’ve been nicely rewarded with additional ideas which might work for me too :-). Every day’s a school day.

Our conductor was a pro tubist with the Augsburg Symphony.
He told us that, when exploring "new" music, wrong notes on a first run through were no problem.
But the same errors from the second run onwards might turn heads.

So their common practise was: mess up once, insert fingering, problem solved.

I took this to my heart and try to do the same.
Sometimes, I even find myself inserting fingerings during whole note passages, especially when it´s a fog-horn contest.
When you´re fighting for survival trying to not run out of air, you take any help you can get...

2nd tenor wrote: Sun Jul 20, 2025 1:37 am My thanks for the support - distinguished support too - of marking pieces up / adding assistance. As is usually the case multiple ways of doing functionally similar things are available and local conditions can influence choices. It really is a case of seeing what alternatives work for you and then shamelessly pursuing solutions.

My earlier posts were with a view to offering ideas and dismissing the concept of ‘cheating’, I’ve been nicely rewarded with additional ideas which might work for me too :-). Every day’s a school day.

Let me clear the air. The term Cheating only applies to myself and only to fingerings. Marking everything else is a must.

anadmai wrote: Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:45 am The term Cheating only applies to myself and only to fingerings.

Years back I might have agreed (about cheating my self) but then I got old and pragmatic, I also re-examined some received wisdom and judged it to be ‘unsound’ - I’ve needlessly beaten myself up over far too many things. Over the years I’ve marked some pieces with some fingering and have come to consider it to be nothing other than a necessary aid that may later be - and almost always is - dispensed with; if someone else wants to believe that they’re cheating themselves (by doing similar markings) then that’s their choice.

Occasionally I help friends within the Band who are weaker players than me. When marking up happens then not for one moment would I consider or suggest that they were cheating themselves by adding fingering to anything, instead I’d consider - and tell them so too - that they were making progress within a learning process. Indeed, until we die or give up, we’re all in some learning process.

^^ That’s my logic and perspective, which I share in the hope that it might help some future reader, and I accept that other folk might have different views.

I suggest it’s time to go back towards the original post.

Any piano players in this group?

I started with piano at age six. My hands barely can stretch to an octave, so even though I studied until I was 16, I wasn't going to be able to play stuff that required a bigger reach.

So what's the commentary on piano? It and classical guitar are the two instruments that I had to learn from the end of the piece in order to get the fingerings right, because otherwise I'd just keep ploughing away getting the notes every which way.

On writing in fingerings -- I have encountered tuba parts with incorrect BBb fingerings written in, in pen. At least make it erasable or xerox the part. Maybe someone had an instrument that was so dramatically out of tune that they had to use off the wall fingerings for some notes, but again, NOT IN INK!

I signed on late to play in a pit one time. When I got the book one rehearsal out from the dress it was full of pencil marks from the previous rental. On this show 1st trp. shared lede with 3rd trp. and among other notation, it was full of marks as to who was to do what when as it varied from scene to scene.

Being late to the party, I didn't know if there had been another trumpeter for this show playing that part or what. So I asked about the markings and the conductor said "Just play the ink." Nonetheless, I had to erase 68 pages of pencil marks before confusing myself with my own marks. So when you mark up rented music or even parts that go back in the orchestra library, please use a hard pencil. I like the post-it note idea for repeats and codas and such.

Shifting back and forth from Eb to Bb tuba I've marked in my share of fingerings. Last time I didn't have time to erase anything before turning it back in after the final performance, so I just made a note at the top that the fingerings were for BBb tuba. We were requested to leave our folders under the podium before returning to the green room. Another time I was playing Meistersinger on Eb tuba and had marked in the fingerings then photocopied it before erasing the fingerings. So now I'm trying to learn it on BBb tuba with the Eb markings that I can't erase. So it's a challenge to maintain the BBb fingerings but good mental exercise.