On Mar 17, 2006, at 2:21 AM, dhbailey wrote:
But just because Ted Ross is the only one who actually wrote a book about it doesn't make him the final arbiter on all matters concerning music layout.
To some extent Ted Ross and others like him are creating a standard. There are enough engravers who choose to follow the proposed "rules", that certain practices have become more standard than they were when the rules were first written. Since there is value in being the same as everyone else, at some point the standard becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For example, the one Ross rule which is probably my greatest personal peeve -- that tempo marks must be in bold -- irks me in large part because it *is* followed so widely nowadays. Even though the way I prefer is plenty common in the older music I'm most familiar with, it's increasingly rare in recently produced editions, so that I feel like I'm slowly being squeezed into a smaller and smaller minority position until some day I'll have to give in and follow the rule so that my readers aren't confused by my unorthodoxy.
On the other hand, pretty much the same thing is happening with another relatively recent rule -- that vocal parts should be beamed the same as instruments, rather that with a separate flag for each syllable, as was quite common in the repertoire I'm most familiar with -- but in that case, I happen to prefer the new rule, so there the trend of progress doesn't bother me at all! I guess it's all a matter of perspective.
mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
