Hazard Ahead: Dangerous Line Break

I’ve been making an effort to be more observant about my mistakes, especially repeated ones, and to reflect on what was happening in my mind and body when a mistake happened. (See my 15-Jan-2024 post, “Juicy Mistakes.”)

Here is an example from May, from the Concord Orchestra’s season finale. This is from the horn 2 part for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4. It is Horn in D, so I was transposing. I noticed that I was having repeated trouble with the first note on the second line. I missed it in a similar way in two different rehearsals.

After the second miss, I was initially puzzled, as there didn’t appear to be anything technically difficult in that measure. After I replayed it in my mind, however, I realized what had happened—the line break caught me off guard, because I hadn’t looked ahead to the beginning of the next line to see what was coming.

I thought for a bit about what to write on my part to prevent this mistake from happening again. Here is what I settled on—the standard “eyeglasses” mark, paired with a backwards-curving arrow.

This mark worked very well for me. It’s easy to write and recognizable. When I see it, I know that I need to look ahead early to the beginning of the next line.

I soon became aware of the same issue occurring elsewhere, and so I used the same mark. Here’s an example from earlier this month, at the Assisi Performing Arts Festival.

At some point, I hope that I will need this kind of mark less often, as I learn to do this look-ahead automatically. For now, though, it helps.