Mark D Lew wrote:
On Oct 21, 2006, at 1:06 AM, dc wrote:
I'm not so sure. One could also hold the opposite and reasoning: if
you do want a tight spacing, it's much easier with a computer, because
you can continue to gain space after the basic layout is determined.
You can try to squeeze an extra bar into a system here and there,
which you can't do with a predetermined layout. This is perhaps why
Score settings (at least those I've seen) are generally looser than
Finale settings.
I think one sees just as many if not more tight computer settings than
loose ones.
Well, maybe. I don't know the reason. I just know that almost any time
I open up a book of pop songs the spacing seems horribly loose compared
to opera and classical that I'm accustomed to. Maybe it's just a
question of what you're used to.
Operas and classical editions of song cycles and other vocal works have
a fixed amount of music which publishers want to use as little paper
(and as few engraving plates) to publish as possible, thus the tight
spacing.
Publishers of piano/vocal pop music are sometimes publishing fixed
bodies of work, such as a companion book to a recording, but much more
often are publishing more amorphous bodies such as "The Best Songs of
2004" -- how many songs would be included is entirely up to the
publisher, and in that case they want as few songs as they feel they can
get away with in order to avoid paying more royalties. Yet there is a
consumer expectation of book-size relative to price, so the publisher
has a minimum number of pages to be in a book, and tells the engravers
(computer-engravers these days) how many pages to use for X number of songs.
So I don't think it's the use of computers that is dictating the looser
spacing in pop music, but simply the economics of the situation. The
same computer software may well be used to publish a much more tightly
spaced volume of "Das Lied von der Erde" or "The Song Cycles of Franz
Schubert" as is used to publish the much looser "Chicago CXXIV" (or
whatever their latest album is numbered.)
In Hal Leonard's Ultimate Jazz Fake Book, the spacing is pretty tight,
and often there are 2 or 3 songs on a single page. But in Warner
Brother's Just Standards Real Book, many songs are spread out over 2
pages, with some songs occupying a single page. Hal Leonard fit 620
songs into a book that is thinner than Warner Brothers uses for a
200-song book.
It's all in the economics, I'll bet, and very little to do with engraver
standards.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
