On 22 Mar 2007 at 8:33, dhbailey wrote: > I'm basing my statements on the system which more than one orchestra > conductor has told groups I've been in concerning numbering our > measures in the old B&H publications which didn't have measure numbers > in them.
If you're instructing a group of players on how to number by hand, yes, numbering every single measure is the least problematic method. But you still have to check that everyone got the numbers right (by checking the count for each movement/section). I've done this numerous times in coaching chamber music, and the only way to do it is by numbering all measures, as anything else results in people miscounting much more often than happens when they count every single measure. The hard part is getting them to notice internal pickup measures when quickly counting measures (pickup measures are not numbered, only measures with downbeats, complete or not). But I still think that in a printed work, the 2nd endings should not be numbered whenever the 2nd ending has the same number of measures as the 1st ending. When then number of measures differs in the two endings, then I think you should do whatever is going to be most clear for the situation. There the argument for numbers that represent balanced periodic phrasing (as in a minuet and trio) likely don't apply, so numbering all measures is not going to confuse those who are accustomed enough to the conventions to recognize m. 17 as the beginning of a new 16-bar period. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
