…a.k.a. “Has this student ever seen a page of printed music?” These things should (but do not) result in immediate failure and/or being made to sit in the corner.
Because a student isn’t thinking with their ears
- When there is no tempo marked
- When there are no dynamic markings at all. Or a tempo indication. Or articulations and slurs…
- When an effect only lasts for one note
Because a student is timid
- When everything has a “mezzo” dynamic
- When accompaniments are entirely in whole notes or half notes
Because a student is guessing instead of learning something
- When a note is marked sp (for “subito piano”?)
- When all parts are balanced with dynamics; mf for the melody, mp for the middleground, p for the bass
- When “arco” has a period at the end
- When all pizzicato notes are marked with staccato dots
- When all notes of a string part have upbow and downbow markings
- When a tie is marked instead of a slur
Because a student is too lazy to proofread or to look in the on-screen manual
- When an empty bar is full of jumbled rests instead of a bar rest
- When a pick-up bar has a bar rest in one instrument
- When errors are multiplied by copy-and-paste
- When notes overlap hairpins
- When a dynamic marking appears under a rest, sometimes under an empty bar (I’m looking at YOU, Finale)
- When the last bar occupies an entire page-width
Because a student isn’t thinking about all the details
- When an instrument is listed as “Violin 1” even though there is only one violin in the piece
- When two separate lines are both listed as “Trumpet” instead of “Trumpet 1” and “Trumpet 2”
- When fermatas only appear in instruments that are playing when the fermata occurs
- When rhythms are difficult to read because they obscure multiple beats in a row