Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
On 30-Jul-07, at 8:40 AM, shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? That is what I like, but according to the overwhelming majority of music I see, the vocal staffs are optimised out. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
Michael L. Meyer wrote: The publisher I see nowadays who almost always prints choral music on letter-size (or folded tabloid, same difference) is E.C. Schirmer. In fact, I just received a box of scores from them that, when you look inside and notice the amount of white space in the margins, are reprinted from an old octavo-sized score onto the letter-size paper. In my personal experience, ECS is one of the more co-operative publishers in terms of providing copies of otherwise out of print material, (archival copies). These appear to be photocopies, and are 8 1/2 x 11 inches. A couple of boutique firms in the UK (Vanderbeek and Imrie's Mapa Mundi imprint, and the now defunct editions of Oeceumuse were printed on A4 paper. The choral works of Avro Part are also provided on paper which is A4 sized, or perhaps a bit larger. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
At 9:24 PM -0400 7/31/07, Lora Crighton wrote: --- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 29 Jul 2007 at 9:29, Christopher Smith wrote: The largest choral parts I have ever seen are 8.5 x 11 Commercially printed choral music is always octavo size, which is, of course, smaller than 8.5 x 11. That didn't seem right, so I checked - I actually own several pieces commercially printed choral music that is letter size, and one that is a strange (to me) size, being a bit taller a bit narrower than letter. Most of my scores are early music, so perhaps that makes a difference? Unusual to find commercially printed letter size, but not surprising these days. The taller and narrower pages you describe are almost certainly A4 size, the European equivalent of letter size. I am not writing for publication, but for immediate use, and I use U.S. letter size exclusively because all U.S. business machines are set up to handle that size quickly and painlessly. (We have a rather large population of international students, and every once in a while a student will turn in written work formatted for A4 as an electronic file. Our department's printer is smart enough to recognize the difference and to wait for A4 paper, which of course we don't have, with the result that that one file holds up the queue waiting to be printed until someone notices and tells it to print anyway!!) John -- John R. 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 Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
The publisher I see nowadays who almost always prints choral music on letter-size (or folded tabloid, same difference) is E.C. Schirmer. In fact, I just received a box of scores from them that, when you look inside and notice the amount of white space in the margins, are reprinted from an old octavo-sized score onto the letter-size paper. There are a few other publishers who will use letter-size from time to time, but everything I've received from E.C. Schirmer in the past few years has been on letter-size paper. -- Mike On Aug 1, 2007, at 1:43 PM, John Howell wrote: At 9:24 PM -0400 7/31/07, Lora Crighton wrote: --- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 29 Jul 2007 at 9:29, Christopher Smith wrote: The largest choral parts I have ever seen are 8.5 x 11 Commercially printed choral music is always octavo size, which is, of course, smaller than 8.5 x 11. That didn't seem right, so I checked - I actually own several pieces commercially printed choral music that is letter size, and one that is a strange (to me) size, being a bit taller a bit narrower than letter. Most of my scores are early music, so perhaps that makes a difference? Unusual to find commercially printed letter size, but not surprising these days. The taller and narrower pages you describe are almost certainly A4 size, the European equivalent of letter size. I am not writing for publication, but for immediate use, and I use U.S. letter size exclusively because all U.S. business machines are set up to handle that size quickly and painlessly. (We have a rather large population of international students, and every once in a while a student will turn in written work formatted for A4 as an electronic file. Our department's printer is smart enough to recognize the difference and to wait for A4 paper, which of course we don't have, with the result that that one file holds up the queue waiting to be printed until someone notices and tells it to print anyway!!) John -- John R. 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 Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? No, they should be optimised out. Singers don't need to read blank measures rest, they'll follow the piano part easily + saves space on the page. Jonathan ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
--- David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 29 Jul 2007 at 9:29, Christopher Smith wrote: The largest choral parts I have ever seen are 8.5 x 11 Commercially printed choral music is always octavo size, which is, of course, smaller than 8.5 x 11. That didn't seem right, so I checked - I actually own several pieces commercially printed choral music that is letter size, and one that is a strange (to me) size, being a bit taller a bit narrower than letter. Most of my scores are early music, so perhaps that makes a difference? -- Io la Musica son, ch'ai dolci accenti So far tranquillo ogni turbato core, Et or di nobil ira et or d'amore Poss'infiammar le più gelate menti. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? -- shirling neueweise ... new music publishers mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? I see no problem with optimizing out when *all* the choral parts are silent and have seen some choral music where there are several systems of just piano part with no chorus showing. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
At 2:40 PM +0200 7/30/07, shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? I often do, to save pages. (The example I tried to send as an email attachment was apparently denied because the pdf was too large.) A commercially published octavo generally would not. John -- John R. 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 Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
On 30 Jul 2007 at 15:13, John Howell wrote: At 2:40 PM +0200 7/30/07, shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? I often do, to save pages. (The example I tried to send as an email attachment was apparently denied because the pdf was too large.) A commercially published octavo generally would not. It might not have been rejected because of size, but because of spam filters -- in the last two months, PDF attachments have become a major feature of spam/email Trojans, somewhat replacing the attached GIF spam (though not completely). For some reason, my spam has dropped vastly in the last few months. When I went to train my SpamAssassain filters last week, I had half as much spam as ham (ham is the good email that you use to tell SA what the mail you want to receive looks like -- I use my deleted mail folder for that purpose), when in the past it's been the other way around (twice as much spam as ham). That means my incoming spam is close to 25% what it once was. I just found a MAILTO on one of my web pages the other day that still had my old email address encoded in it (though URL-encoded, I don't think many of the spam email address harvestors are fooled by that any more), and I just removed it. Maybe I'll see even further reduction in spam! If that happens, it also means that it's possible over time to cleanse compromised email addresses, as long as you completely remove all clear-text or URL-encoded references to them. Sadly, I can never do that, as there are still Usenet posts in Google Groups' archives that include my old addresses in plain text (addresses that date back to 1996, when spam was a very minor problem compared to today). Back to your problem: I would zip up PDFs these days, or just put them on my website and send a URL. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? Traditionally, this depended upon particulars of the music, and publisher. Some UK publishers routinely optimized out choral lines; Parry's I was glad has a full page of two stave organ introductory material before the chorus enters. In other cases, for example, Ireland's Greater love hath no man, has about a page and a half of three staff systems in the middle, where there is a soprano solo followed by a baritone one, during which the choir is silent. It also varied depending upon whether the item was in a larger collection, or published separately. The Oxford /Church Anthem Book/ frequently has the accompaniment introduction on a grand staff, adding staves for the voice lines at beginning of the system where each makes its entrance. The exact same arrangment, published as an octavo, has a different layout, less frugal with space. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
thanks. feel free to send it to me privately. cheers, jef At 2:40 PM +0200 7/30/07, shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? I often do, to save pages. (The example I tried to send as an email attachment was apparently denied because the pdf was too large.) A commercially published octavo generally would not. -- shirling neueweise ... new music publishers mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
On 30 Jul 2007 at 15:13, John Howell wrote: At 2:40 PM +0200 7/30/07, shirling neueweise wrote: am i correct in thinking the vocal lines should not be op^timized out of piano solo passsages? I often do, to save pages. ... A commercially published octavo generally would not. Depends on the publisher, I suppose. I see many church anthems, and a great many _do_ optimize away the the vocal lines on piano solo passages. Many publishers will do anything to cut down on pages, including D.S. - Codas that save only 8 measures of print. Just make the piano only system is very clear on the page. Sometimes those systems get skipped in rehearsal (or even worse, performance!) Raymond Horton Minister of Music Edwardsville (IN) United Methodist Church (Sorry if part of this message repeats. Finale bounced back an earlier reply from a different email address. ) ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
On Jul 29, 2007, at 7:52 AM, shirling neueweise 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. I usually go by guess and by gosh for staff sizes and spacing (I can hear you cringing from over here!) but two systems on that size paper seems very large for choral parts. The largest choral parts I have ever seen are 8.5 x 11, and the music is usually smaller than on an orchestral part, since the chorus are holding the music a foot and a half from their faces and the paper can't be so big as to be unwieldy. Two systems of SATB+piano sounds very reasonable for folio- sized music. Piano (even a piano reduction, in the case of orchestra works) on the same part as the chorus is normal. They are not usually separated, as the chorus gets important cues from the piano part and the pianist is usually a répétiteur who needs to know exactly what the chorus is singing. what font size (fixed?) do you use for the lyrics? Big controversy here. Bigger fonts, which everyone cries for (especially post 40-years-of-age eyes) cause spacing problems. Smaller fonts cause rehearsal problems and large sections of singers singing Fnuh, fnuh, fnay, fnuh because they can't see the words. I vaccillate between 12 and 14 points at 75-80% reduction (don't know what that is fixed size, maybe 10 and 12?) and sometimes 13, depending on how dense it is and if I have to gain a bit of space to fit an extra measure in some systems or can relax a bit. Obviously I keep the same size for the whole work. any suggestions for examples i can look at online would be appreciated. I'll forward a commercial sheet to you offlist, which should give you an idea. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
On 29 Jul 2007 at 9:29, Christopher Smith wrote: The largest choral parts I have ever seen are 8.5 x 11 Commercially printed choral music is always octavo size, which is, of course, smaller than 8.5 x 11. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
On Jul 29, 2007, at 12:55 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 29 Jul 2007 at 9:29, Christopher Smith wrote: The largest choral parts I have ever seen are 8.5 x 11 Commercially printed choral music is always octavo size, which is, of course, smaller than 8.5 x 11. Yes, I had said folio in my post (not quoted completely above), but I meant octavo, which is not the same thing. But some publishers ARE printing 8.5 X 11 parts for some large works, flying in the face of tradition, and many non-published arrangers and composers print choral parts in 8.5 x 11 sizes, which was more my point. 9.5 X 12.5 is practically unheard-of in the choral world. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
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 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: choir+piano layout
thanks for the help everyone, yeah i've re-done the layout for letter-size, which has becvome the standard for a whole range of formats actually. -- shirling neueweise ... new music publishers mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
