On 29 Jun 2002, at 22:10, �ric Dussault wrote: > � Good engraving is almost always tight engraving. It may be tempting, when > you are getting paid per page (the method most publishers use) to space > music generously to create extra pages, but you should resist the urge. > Tighly spaced music is easier to read, as more information is readily > available for the eye (...) � > > What about people who just want their music to look good. Most of my clients > are billed on an hourly rate, which I think is a lot more fair. I do > whatever I think is good for the music. Before reading this I was already > noticing that the examples in the book were often damn tight (sometimes a > couple of measures too many for a system) for my own taste, which may be > discutable. But the problem with Finale spacing is that it becomes uglier as > the music is becoming tighter. Am I silly or what?
I used to space my music very tightly because when I started out with Finale I was using a slow bubble-jet printer and needed to conserver paper. Now I have a fast laser and plenty of paper and I've realized that the music looks *larger* when space generously. That is, take music that's, for example, laid out with 8 measures per system, on average, and change it to 6 per system, and it makes the music look *bigger*, as well as enhancing readability in general. Yes, that's a pretty subjective comment, but I've found that it makes a big difference in my scores (almost all of which are late 18th- and early 19th-century keyboard chamber works). My working method has changed from trying the spacing of a system that ends up with overlap and removing a measure, to removing a measure or two from the system spacing that *almost* overlaps (that could be manually tweaked to have no overlap). The result is remarkably more readable, and the increase in the number of pages not really that great for each movement overall. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
