Jef wrote:
hi, i don't work with voice very much, wonder if anyone can let me
know what the standard formats for SATB+piano might be. and what
percentage reduction do you usually use? are there usually separate
piano and choir scores? if i use the format i was planning (9.5x12.5)
i can get 2 systems per page.
The standard format will depend somewhat upon exactly what you are
doing, but to start, (not only as one who engraves choral music, but as
one who regularly sings from it) I would strongly advise not using 9.5 x
12.5 inch paper! This is a very nonstandard size for choral music, and
will cause choir librarians and choristers no end of headaches. Octavo
(about 7 x 10 inches) was the traditional size for choral music, though
more recently the increasing prevalence of desk-top publishing has made
letter sized scores (8.5 x 11 in the US; A4 in the UK and EU) more
common. The standard layout for choral music (SATB + Accomp) is a
six-staff system; the top four staves grouped with a bracket for the
voices , the bottom two grouped into a grand staff with a brace. This
arrangement is nearly universal, even for music intended to be
accompanied by an organ, which is most often notated on two, rather than
three staves.
what font size (fixed?) do you use for the lyrics?
Traditionally, typeface sizes for lyrics were from 8 to 10 point,
depending upon publisher, and period; if one intends an octavo sized
score, this is still a good final size for the lyrics.
My practice is to use a system reduction between 60 and 70 percent for
choral music if I expect the score to be printed on octavo sized paper,
and to use 70 to 75 percent for choral music intended to be printed on
letter sized paper. As far as selecting the size of the lyric fonts, I
prefer not to used fixed font size. I start with the planned size the I
want the font to appear at in the final product, and divide that size by
the percentage of reduction. Thus, if I want the final size of the type
to be 12 point, and I am using a system reduction of 75 percent, I
divide 12 by .75, which yields a dividend of 16, which is the point size
I use for lyrics. Where the dividend is not an integer (10 points
divided by .60, for example) I follow standard rounding rules.
any suggestions for examples i can look at online would be appreciated.
Three resources come to mind:
1) The Choral public domain library;
2) The Sibley Library of Eastman School of Music in Rochester is
scanning much of it's public domain material, and making downloads
available; and
3) The Music Memory project of the Library of Congress has quite a
selection of old music scanned available for download or review.
I will concede at the front end, that these are not ideal sources for
engraving reference. The materials in the latter two sources are old--at
least 80 years, and some twice that, and it should be taken to account
that they hardly represent the state of the art in choral music
engraving (though in fact, most of the choral materials in the latter
two repositories are typeset, not engraved). The scores on the former
source are contributed with the idea of printing by typical desktop
publishing, and are mostly printed as letter sized. Also, quite
candidly, the engraving standards vary from one item to the next.
ns
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