Part of a conductor’s training is learning how to read a score — the ups, downs, and arounds of the musical dynamics, expressions, staves, and clefs.

You must know your C clefs from your G clef, your F clef from your baritone. (Just kidding! The last two are the same.) And, of course, you must know which instruments are written in transposition, and by how much.

Here, then, are the best books for pianists looking to practice reading full scores:

• Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading, Morris & Ferguson

• Music for Score Reading, Melcher & Warch

• Bach Chorales 1-91 in Open Score, ed. Boyd & Riemenschneider

• Partiturspiel (Vol. 1-4), Creuzburg (Published by Schott; these are excellent, but tricky to find in the US)

• Score Reading Exercises (Vol. 1 & 2), Lang

• Score Reading of Orchestral Music: Guide for Conductors and Music Readers, Metelska-Räsänen (This is the academic, one-stop-shop textbook — you can skip this if you just want materials for reading practice)

“Character is who you are when you think no one is looking.”

“Understanding begets compassion.” - paraphrase of Christopher Paolini

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.” - Theodore Rubin

“The beginning of wisdom of the desire of discipline.” - Wisdom of Solomon, 6:17

“We do not remain good if we do not constantly strive to become better.” - Gottfried Keller

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“As you think, so shall you become. “ - Bruce Lee

“If you’re not going to worry about it on your deathbed, don’t worry about it now.”

“Those who say, do not know. Those who know, do not say.”

There was a point as I got older — say, around age 25 — that I worried I was kaput. My fear was that anything I hadn't yet mastered — speaking French, reading alto and tenor clefs, and surfing, for example — would forever elude and frustrate me. My fear was based on the childish (and erroneous) belief that grown-ups can't learn.

Well, funny enough, one of the things I've learned in my 30 years of life is that, yes, grown-ups can learn. And, in fact, if they have spent time honing their learning abilities and habits, they can learn better — more quickly and more deeply — than younger people. By leveraging my experience in speaking Spanish, playing piano, and ice skating, I have been able to improve (though not yet master) my French, score-reading, and surfing.

My initial fear was grounded in a certain truth — that young brains are receptive and have higher crystallized intelligence than older ones. But, at the end of the day, I am smarter, more experienced, and more capable at 30 than I was at 25, and it's because I can enjoy the benefits accrued in my younger, more quick-witted years while leveraging the experience and wisdom that have colored my life in the intervening years.

I'm not old (yet) — just older. But if I were old…would that be so bad?

I keep trying to write an introductory post, but I haven’t found quite the right words.

Eventually, my hope is that the writings I share here will give you an idea of who I am and what I’m about.

Until then, here are some writings from other people that have deeply influenced me:

• Man’s Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl

• The Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey

• Antifragile and Skin in the Game, Nassim Taleb

• The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield

• Awareness, Anthony De Mello

• As a Man Thinketh, James Allen

• Atomic Habits, James Clear

• Mastery, Robert Greene

• Life 101: Everything We Wish We Had Learned about Life in School — But Didn’t, Peter McWilliams

• The Art of Learning, Joshua Waitzkin

• Unscripted, MJ DeMarco

• Tribe of Mentors, Tim Ferriss

• The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle