At 10:18 PM -0700 7/2/10, Ryan wrote:
Thanks for all your great advice. Now that I'm actually at the point of laying out the music, I wonder if it's permissible to optimize out the pedal staff if it helps fit music onto the page. Likewise, if there's a long passage for pedal only, can I optimize out the manual staves?
I'm not an organist, and I'd always defer to what they prefer, but in general I would not do so. You assume that you are writing exactly as it will be played, but no two organs are the same, and indeed your music may be played on organs without a full pedalboard--or even on a piano, at least in rehearsal. There are decisions that you simply have to leave to the player.
Regarding page turns, if the hands are silent, but the feet are playing, is a page turn permissible if it's the only choice? I'm trying to put page turns over multi-measure rests, but being an organ concerto, there aren't a lot of them once things get going.
I would think so, but again I'm not an organist.
Oh, if there are systems with nothing but rests, is it permissible to show only one staff so that more systems can fit on a page?
May I respectfully suggest that "more systems on a page" should NEVER be your overriding goal. Keyboard players seem comfortable with MUCH larger and spread out music than I'm used to seeing with single-line instrumental music. And it's been obvious for years that Finale makes it TOO easy to reduce the size to get "more systems on a page," which ends up with music from Hal Leonard that is too small for aging eyes to read! Reducing size should never be your first choice, and optimizing staves out should probably never be your second.
But I defer to the organists. Give them what they want and need. John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
