
Turning Over: Why page turners matter - evilsimon
https://van-us.atavist.com/turning-over
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gabrielmoshe
What a wonderful treatment of a particularly stressful job.

I'm a classically trained musician, but have little experience playing piano,
yet I've been recruited to turn pages not infrequently. Somehow there seems to
be more pressure as a page-turner than as a performer. I always felt extremely
conscious of my place beside the musician, while as a performer, it is much
easier to lose ones self in the muscle-memory and flow of a piece. Page-
turning requires, as the essay describes, a special kind of focus.

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throwaheyy
I have been recruited as a page-turner more than I've needed a page-turner
(usually played from memory). I think being the page-turner is more stressful
because you can screw up the performance just as badly, but resulting from a
much smaller level of negligence. That makes it seem so much worse if it
happens.

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todd8
I played clarinet for a few years from around 12 years old to 17 years old; I
wasn't very good. Perhaps some other HN readers have a similar background.

I was shocked to see how a woman I dated prepared for a classical orchestra
performance. She was a professional musician. An envelope of music arrived
with her parts for a symphony performance. She would set aside a few days to
practice it, then there would be one day of rehearsal and then the
performance. The pages of music were complex, far more complex than any music
I'd ever played or even looked at and of course a solo or exposed piano piece
would likely have even more complex music to be read, putting a great deal of
dependence on the page turner.

I suppose that by the time one is taking professional gigs like this that
there is a standard repertoire and that some of the pieces might be at least a
bit familiar. Nevertheless, I can't understand that level of musical ability,
it seems super-human.

One other interesting fact: she had taken a few private lessons from very high
level performers, principal oboe at NY Philharmonic as I recall. She asked him
what would happen if he missed an exposed note during a performance, like a
very soft note that might not get the oboe reeds to play. He said he couldn't
make a mistake without risking his job. This is hearsay and I don't remember
exactly what she said his answer was, but professional orchestra performance
must have very serious pressure to deal with.

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Balanceinfinity
seems that the real source of the stress is that you're screwing up something
that isn't really yours to screw up.

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Stratoscope
This article is - dare I say it? a page-turner!

Seriously, I never thought an article about such an esoteric topic would be so
interesting.

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Drdrdrq
Genuinly curious: why is this still a thing? How difficult could it be to
throw together some screen, microphone and ML algorithm that would turn the
pages (or roll then up) at appropriate time?

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kdmccormick
Aside from the technical challenges of this, I think that it's not exactly in
the spirit of classical performance, which often is as much about the
incredible skill and attention-to-detail of the people on stage as it is about
the sound of the music itself. So, I imagine many skilled pianists would still
prefer a human page turner over such a device, even if it did exist and
functioned perfectly.

~~~
amelius
But I think a fair question is: why are these performers even using sheet
music? Imagine going to a pop concert and [insert favorite artist] was reading
sheet music while dancing on stage. Shouldn't the music be in "muscle memory",
even for classical performers? Wouldn't that open up more opportunities for
contact between the performer and audience?

~~~
JasonFruit
One difference is that Pink Floyd made their entire careers on about thirty-
five songs, iirc. That's about one season's worth of one symphony orchestra's
repertoire, and most performers perform with multiple ensembles to make a
living. Does the wedding gig string quartet have their regular repertoire
memorized? Probably. Does the orchestra have the premiere by a minor
Midwestern composer memorized? No, and they never will.

