Quote:
Originally Posted by Omri Lahav
And the best advice I can give you is don't bother with bad scores.
Only study good scores from good composers and orchestrators.
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I disagree with that! I think I have learned a lot more by studying scores or instrumentation exercises by fellow students than by "established" composers. Not saying that those scores were bad (well, some of them were), but I think it can be an advantage not to know beforehand whether, say, the instrumentation is going to be excellent or problematic. Such scores don't invite you to blindly copy everything, but actually make you think for yourself: Is it easily understandable what the composer went for? How is it notated? How does this sound? Will it be practicable to perform? Will the apparent intent of the composer come out? And so on.
With scores written by people you already accept as "masters" you won't ask yourself these questions so much. You will often take for granted that it's a masterful instrumentation and just assume that it will sound good, be effective, be well notated, etc. You won't question it so much.
Sure, you can learn a lot things from great scores, and many things you might never learn otherwise, so it's important to study them. But more ambiguous scores will teach your ability to think critically and to precicely imagine the audible result. Even better if you can actually discuss it with others, or the composer personally. You will copy less, but discover a lot yourself.