There is also a fair amount of scoring SATB as SA and TB where it really ought to be split into 4 staves. *sigh*
Well, that's hymnbook style as opposed to choral score style. I use both, as appropriate. Specifically, when I'm writing for someone and I will not be there to clarify things, or writing for publication (which I'd love to do more of!), I will use 4 staves because that's expected. But there's a problem with that when it comes to divisi. If I want to go from SA to SSA or SAA, I have to put the third note on either the soprano staff or the alto staff. But what I might actually intend is SMA, with equal numbers of sopranos, mezzos and altos, and I always wonder whether the average choir director will take that into consideration. (One of my faculty colleagues at Indiana University assigned the women in his ensemble to S1, S2, and A, but then had all S1s and S2s sing the soprano line when the voicing was SATB, giving a soprano-heavy sound I didn't especially care for.)
Writing for my own college groups, though, in pop styles that were mostly homorhythmic, I used 2 staves, SA and TB. This allowed me to go from unison on each staff to 2-part to 3-part to 4-part very easily, and I did quite a lot of that. If I got into contrapuntal passages, of course I switched to as many staves as there were parts. It never seemed to bother my students (the men) to switch from tenor G-clef to bass clef in the middle of a chart when it was necessary. And when I sent out acceptance letters before the start of fall semester, I included a chart specifying which part each singer was to sing in 2-, 3-, or 4-part divisi.
Editing for my early music ensemble, I make the barlines invisible when the music seems to need it, and my singers have gotten used to it and are less locked into barline rhythms and more likely to shape their phrases according to the text accentuation. But again, I'm in charge of those rehearsals and can clarify any questions.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
