I know there probably isn't any standard, but just wondering what are the usual paper sizes employed for a conductor's score with 16-18 staves? Something that's comfortable to read and not too spaced out that it's difficult to pick out the lines at a glance, but not too compressed that notation starts clashing / becomes confusing to read.
Reason I'm asking: my notation software standardizes to the system default paper size (US Letter), which is laughably small for a 16-18 stave orchestral score unless I shrink the notation to an unreadable microscopic font. What would be a more reasonable setting to use?
Replies
well, yeah, using condensing etc. but try not to go below 4mm staff size. This is a good resource if you want to dig in: https://mola-inc.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files/mola3/MOLA-Guidel...
Ooh that's super helpful. Thanks for the link!
Hmm. I'm reading through this now, and it says "If at all possible, instrument doubling ... should not be included in a principal part". What does this mean? Does it mean that if I have, say, flute I doubling on piccolo, I should write it out in two separate staves and have two separate parts for it? It's not clear what it means because the very next sentence goes on to talk about including indications of instrument switches in a part.
I think they just mean that any instrument doubling should be done by the 2nd or 3rd players (e.g., Flute 2 or 3 doubling piccolo, not Flute 1--"principal" flute) unless absolutely necessary
Ohhh I see what it's trying to say now. Cool, thanks!
16 replies about the paper size of a score. Some people think that modern composers aren't that interesting, but you proved them wrong
I use 11 x 17 for a full orchestra conductor's score. If it's a small enough group I'll use 10.5 x 14. And if it's an even smaller group I'll use 9 x 12.
But what I won't do is use tiny staff sizes. I use big enough paper to prevent that.
Wesley
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