I've been asked to accompany at a Grade 8 Alto Sax exam.....one of the pieces is the Blues Concerto by Bill Holcombe. Why, oh why, is this hand written, and as a result extremely difficult to read? Can there be a reason for this?

I do not know thae piece or the reason why it is a hand written score but I find many hand written pieces difficult to read. Perhaps you could ask your soloist to transcribe it into Finale or Sibelius so that you can have a more workable score to use? I have done this using Finale on several occasions and it really doesn't take very long. I can type in a page of busy score in under ten minutes usually.

It is quite a tricky score to read because of the amount of accidentals and silly rhythms. Try and do what Petrat said

Hi there,

Thanks for your feedback. I've managed to conquer it, but just wondered why things like this are ever published in handwriting! I can see no benefit whatsoever.

E

That's interesting as I have just ordered it, with the view of playing the sax part - hope my teacher knows what's in store....! I hate hand written stuff personally. It just makes stuff LOOK so hard.