general format lay-out sheet music

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general format lay-out sheet music

8 years ago

What is most general lay-out of sheet music used for singers and instrument players?
I want to know general settings for the lyric fonts, the distance between staff and lyrics (and also between the lyrics and the next staff). Also, what is ideal distance between the first set of staffs (are they called "system"?) and the next one?

Also I want to know if there is a way to create two lines for the lyricist and/or the author,

I hope anyone can help me.

Regards,
Guido

Re: general format lay-out sheet music

Reply #1 – 8 years ago

Quote

I want to know general settings for the lyric fonts, the distance between staff and lyrics (and also between the lyrics and the next staff).

Maybe I'm wrong (if it's the case, please feel free to correct me), but I think there's no standard for this... I'm sure there's lots of rules, but nothing like "general sttings". It depends on each score or even on each editor...
In my opinion, you might remember that, after all, scores must be confortable for musicians and/or singers, so keep it in mind when you chose the font typeface and the distance between staves and/or lyrics. It will be better if you can make it as clear for reading as you can.

Quote

Also I want to know if there is a way to create two lines for the lyricist and/or the author

For achieving this you can use a User Object called PageTxtMaestro.nw.

I hope it will help you

Lloyd.

Re: general format lay-out sheet music

Reply #2 – 8 years ago

The problem is that when setting music, usually contradicting requirements have to be fulfilled: Use as little space (so that printing is not too expensive; and with a few page turns as possible), but make everything as clearly visible as possible. Different editors have different ideas and experiences and (budget and other) constraints, so the result differ widely.
We sing a few John Rutter songs in our choir - the scores make heavy use of compressing identical lines (e.g. of soprano and tenor) into a single system, with small arrows at line breaks to indicate where to continue below - a nightmare. Typical sheet music of jazz arrangements has all voices and the piano on too small pages, with sometimes only 6 measures per page - another nightmare (especially for the pianist), the more so if sheets are not stapled in the center - more than once some pages ended up on my pedal foot and had to be rescued while playing. A 100 and more years ago, scores were compressed extremely to save paper (you can find many of those at IMSLP).
I have (from having played and sung music now for more than 40 years) my own ideas about what is better and worse in scores - but not too rarely I meet people with different ideas (for example, when our eye-sight gets worse, we accept more page-turns in return for larger fonts ...); so it seems that there are no "ideal" distances, sizes etc.

H.M.

Re: general format lay-out sheet music

Reply #3 – 8 years ago

Check Elaine Gould's book Behind Bars (Faber, 2011). It's the definitive guide to printed music notation and layout. Fairly pricey, but any good library should have it in the reference section.