Skip to main content
Topic: Rehearsal Marks (Read 2794 times) previous topic - next topic

Rehearsal Marks

How do I insert rehearsal marks (A, B, C, etc, in circles or boxes) above the score?

Re: Rehearsal Marks

Reply #1
Hi Mike

There is a user tool that you can add to your NWC set up. It is called "Bar label.ms". Have a look in the user tool section of the forum for complete instructions. It is super easy once you get the hang of it.

Re: Rehearsal Marks

Reply #2
Hi friend,
I usually use MusikDings font.
Assign it to one of the user fonts and insert the Rehersal Mark as a text insert. I think the font collection is packaged within the last version of NWC... if not, you can find them on Lawrie Pardy's website.

Cheers!
Lloyd.
[...] y el mayor bien es pequeño: que toda la vida es sueño, y los sueños, sueños son.

Re: Rehearsal Marks

Reply #3
Here is an attempt at a trivial example; I also use BarCounter.hmm, because I have found that putting a measure number on every other(!) barline helps immensely in rehearsals.

H.M.

Re: Rehearsal Marks

Reply #4
It's cool that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal.

Harald, do you usually put the marks in each part? I have been putting them with the instrumental part (as in a flute part) but not with the piano part or choral part. The score for the pianist and choir will be printed with all parts.  I will print the instrument part alone, for ease in playing with less page turns. My composition prof told me to give the instrumentalist the full score, though, but the players don't seem to prefer that for the performance.


Re: Rehearsal Marks

Reply #5
Harald, do you usually put the marks in each part? I have been putting them with the instrumental part (as in a flute part) but not with the piano part or choral part. The score for the pianist and choir will be printed with all parts.  I will print the instrument part alone, for ease in playing with less page turns. My composition prof told me to give the instrumentalist the full score, though, but the players don't seem to prefer that for the performance.
I put the marks in each part with "Visibility: Top staff only", so they come out on top regardless of which scores I assemble for various people. One exception: For a larger score (already 4 choir voices + 4 strings + organ = 10 staves), I'd put a layered staff with invisible rests for "distancing" above the organ with all the marks "always visible"; this staff is only printed in the full score, so there, the marks are also "8 staves down there".

And, I now always print measure numbers every other measure at the same places, i.e. on top and "some 8 staves lower" - I hated to wait for consensus on the public computation attempts "Ok, let's start in measure - ah, 57, 55, ok ... that's, well, 52 - (choir, from basses and one soprano:) no, you mean 53 - (conductor:) ah, yes ... (lifts hand) (choir: starts singing at two, sometimes even three different places)".

Re the various scores, for our(!) choir, the result of various discussions was:
  • Choir doesn't want to see anything instrumental - most of them cannot read/follow it - so they get a "pure choir score", with a few cue notes before an entrance if they are silent longer than say 4 measures.
  • Also I, typically playing organ or piano, do not want a full score, but a rather thin one - usually piano/organ with soprano voice and/or a leading soloist or something like that.
  • Even our conductor sometimes gets only a "condensed score" - she is more of a choir conductress and lumps e.g. all strings together - so she likes two piano-like staves for the strings more (and neither she nor I can fluently read a viola clef, so we are happy to bury that voice in the cello staff ...)
But of course, this is "specialized established practice for this choir" ...

H.M.

Re: Rehearsal Marks

Reply #6
Thanks for you answer. I forgot to enable reply notifications, and just saw it now.

Yes, each choir is different.  In my choral conductor training, we were taught to give the location based on the page number, approximate location of the page, lyric, voice parts, and measure number: for example, "Ok, bottom of page 3, the third "All creatures", measure 56, let's hear the bass part". There is still usually a bit of confusion, so I can see how adding measure numbers to our own scores is helpful for everyone involved.

When acting as an adjudicator in musical competitions, each score was required to have handwritten measure numbers for each measure, to aid in our written and verbal assessments of the performers. They would lose marks if they didn't have these measures added to the score.