Ryan Beard wrote:
Is it still common practice to use oblong pages for organ music?
Yes, if iz common some (mostly European) publishers to use oblong pages in landscape format (10 x 13 or so, exact sizes vary). Other publishers which formerly used that format (such as Concordia Publishing in the US) for organ music have switched to a 8-1/2 x 11 or 9 x 12 in portrait format. Others, including Oxford University Press, and some of the French publishers, always used a portrait format.
I'm guessing that the size is dictated by the "stand" that's often built into organs. What would be the largest size page you organ-playing listers would use?
The music rack on most organ consoles easily holds an open oblong landscape oriented score, so about 28 or 30 inches wide. The biggest consideration in how to lay out the music of an organ score, though, is how it is to be distributed. If you are working through an established publisher, this will be under their control; if you are preparing something that is to be distributed by means of on-line downloads, or other self-print means (e.g., by means of ~.pdf files, or other download formats) then I'd prepare the music for 8 1/2 x 11 inch papers, as most of your users are unlikely to be able to conveniently deal with larger sizes.
Should the *music* size (staff size) be larger than standard instrumental parts since the organists music may be further away depending on the size of the console?
Since I'm not sure there is a common agreement as to the size of the notation elements in "standard instrumental parts, I'll note that organists routinely play accompaniments from choral octavos, where the height of a staff is 1/4 inch (measuring from bottom to top line) or less, and in many "accompaniment editions" of hymnals, the hymns in the accompaniment volume score are the same size as those printed in the "full music" edition. Further I've seen a couple of touring recitalists who take a standard organ score and reduce it to the 1/8 size (that is, they reduce the music so that 8 pages fit on a single side of a sheet of music), and it would be reasonable those who cannot comfortably read an octavo or hymnal, use reading glasses at the console.
If I were you, I'd ask your local organist to see some of his scores, and estimate the size and format of the volume, the number of staves on the page, and the approximate separation between staves, and use these parameters to inform your decision as to layout matters.
Also, I would note that my preference in all music is to undo the Finale default of 85 percent reduction in page size. I set page size in all my work to 100 percent, and do all reducing at the system, staff, note, or notehead level, as I find most suitable.
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