By principle I do agree with you, only I find this approach blurs the clarity of an otherwise quite tidy score.
The setting is for brass quintet on the 5 top staves, organ (3 staves), and SATB choir on 4 staves. All staves are equally spaced (a parameter which could be changed, but that would take a further size reduction). The problem is less the numbers of ledger lines. The tuba goes to the second E below the bass clef staff. The problem in the AT organ staff is that the stems and slur point away from the staff when exposed on several ledger lines. Elements in between tend to clash with those of neighbouring staves. A former student of mine, who ended up as church organist, has chimed in after the replies from Darcy and you. She suggest writing in treble clef with the 8bassa dashline all the way. I wouldn’t like that because that invites other clash problems, and visual clarity isn’t furthered that way. Another alternative would be applying the treble clef 8bassa to the staff. I wouldn’t have problems with that, as that is the normal tenor notation in choir settings. But according to a private discussion with a US organist/pianist years ago, some players would be confused by that clef. For the score I so far have landed on Darcy’s suggestion of shifting between treble and bass clefs as needed. I will make two versions of the final organ part. One reflecting the score. One with the 8bassa dash line under treble clef. And as a part is more flexible in spacing of the staves, I may even make a version with this AT staff written all in bass clef with lots of ledger lines. Because John and I agree on that being the right approach, clumsily looking or not. Klaus, very much aware that reading approaches vary quite a bit between players --- On Mon, 9/27/10, John Howell <[email protected]> wrote: > From: John Howell <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Finale] OT: Behind Bars and a question on organ notation > To: [email protected] > Date: Monday, September 27, 2010, 7:16 PM > At 2:57 AM -0700 9/27/10, Klaus > Smedegaard Bjerre wrote: > > > > Visually I could improve the writing by using alto > clef, tenor clef, or treble clef octave down, but that would > create reading problems or confusion. The same would go for > frequent shifts between treble and bass clefs. > > > > What to do? > > In my opinion (of course!), using anything except > conventional treble and bass clefs would throw most > organists into fits. Especially those trained in the > U.S. Frequent shifts could work, and I believe this is > done all the time in conventional piano music. But my > first tendency would be to pick a clef in which the majority > of notes fall comfortably, and let the ledger lines fall > where they may!! > > 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:[email protected]) > 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 > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
