Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

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David Ward
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Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by David Ward »

First some background:

I received generous grants in 1994 (or maybe 93) from both the then Scottish Arts Council and also two arts-supporting trust funds to write the piece in question, which I duly did in manuscript full score. However, once complete (1995) I abandoned the piece, because of adverse comments on the libretto (my own) from my then wife and also from the stage director with whom I'd hoped to work. Now, for the first time in 22 years, I've taken an idle look at the score and it strikes me as hugely, hugely better than I'd remembered, so I'm now full of enthusiasm for and belief in the piece. Fashions and tastes change… What's more, it's a potential vocal and dramatic tour de force for a suitable mezzo in the title role - if she can manage all the strength of a dramatic mezzo, plus the coloratura agility of a lyric one!

Anyway, it is a three act piece consisting of a bit over two hours of music, on 500 pages of A3 manuscript, for normal large orchestra, 4 principal sung roles, 5 subsidiary roles (as a vocal quintet whose members are materialistic young urban professionals in the outer acts and peasants of a remote community in the middle one) and full mixed chorus - plus dancers and supernumeraries for a ballet representing a stock market crash to begin Act III.

My manuscript layout is fairly conventional, as is the notation. However, I can see many hazards in trying to engrave it in Finale. The triple wind (plus tenor sax) have all sorts of stave layout. ie The three flutes may sometimes be sharing a stave, or may be on two staves either as 1, 2 then 3 or as 1, then 2, 3 or on three separates staves. The 4 horns may be in any of the various possible permutations on 1, 2, 3, or 4 staves, the strings are sub-divided in a whole host of different ways both tutti and solo &c &c. Similar things happen with the chorus and the vocal quintet. Mostly, the chorus women are not on S A staves, but on one stave with continually changing divisions into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 parts, almost on a beat by beat basis (this can be seen in some Italian opera scores), with the libretto above as well as below the stave if necessary.

In my manuscript I never need more than 28 staves to a system, but I can see my needing more than twice that number in Finale (though not too many staves in the final layout of the full score).

How to set about engraving this monster? Any advice about how I might best proceed would be welcome.
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tisimst
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by tisimst »

Wow! That's quite a work you've got cut out for yourself! Did you originally do it by hand or on the computer? I'm afraid less of a Finale power user than I'd like to be, so others please chime in on app-specific tips, but here are a few general thoughts that I think are not program specific.

If it were me doing it, I would attempt the following:

1. Starting in panorama/galley view, I would start by inputting each part on its own staff the entire way through, all divisi. Ignore the fact that parts may combine or separate throughout. Getting this input at least provides the foundation for proofing the content of the work. Don't bother fixing collisions or adjusting spacing along the way until you've got everything input.

2. Once you feel that every part is correct by itself, and if you still feel like parts should be combined as you originally engraved it, then you begin adding staves for the intent of copying in passages where parts combine and hiding those same parts in the divisi staves (don't delete them yet). Force yourself to not worry about score layout too much since you'll want to make sure all the staff-jumping occurs at the correct locations.

3. Once you're satisfied with the transitions, then jump back to normal page view and begin to play with staff-size, bars-per-system, etc. and fix the ugly collisions/spacings until you're satisfied.

4. Then do the same with part scores (sigh).

Sorry I can't be of more help than that. You probably were going to do all that anyway, but there's my 2 cents. Have fun with it!
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odod
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by odod »

that's quite a BIG JOB for me (sigh) ..
but first thing i would do this monster is using a big screen monitor for better viewing and just like tisimst said, work on every parts first, ornaments and dynamic later on and last one would be layout and formatting
don't forget to have yourself a glass of coffee (you might need it a lot) :)
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OCTO
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by OCTO »

Hmm..
IF you have already done the score and if it is nice-looking, why not to keep it as it is and save time?

BUT if you really need it in Finale I would do the following - ONLY IN THE CASE your manuscript is well done by page.
It means you have to work by copying each page first, and when done ONE page, you go forward.
I have a different opinion than tisimst:
I would create all needed instruments on the fly (when needed, than create it).
Therefore, I would work in the scroll view by entering ONE manuscript page at the time, controlling that all shared staff has its counterpart in the single staves (a single Horn-stave 1+2+4 would be copied into Horn 1, Horn 2, Horn 4; than these would be hidden). And, after ONE manuscript page is done, I would go to Page View and format it so that it conforms your manuscript page. After that, continue the next page.
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David Ward
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by David Ward »

Thank you all for your comments. Yes, it does seem a little daunting…
tisimst wrote:… Did you originally do it by hand or on the computer?… …
By hand (3B pencil on paper), from which several photocopies were made, reduced to A4, comb bound and distributed (if I remember) to the funders, a music archive and a conservatoire.

I also have two photocopies here (I'm not sure where is the original manuscript), so I should probably start by unbinding one and scanning it to cloud storage. Another early job should be to retype the libretto. Since I have other projects with confirmed performance dates, and no date for this, my work on it might be interrupted, but once I have begun typesetting it in Finale, I will aim to finish as soon as reasonable.

I am tempted by OCTO's approach, which best fits my way of working as a composer.
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tisimst
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by tisimst »

David Ward wrote:I am tempted by OCTO's approach, which best fits my way of working as a composer.
Of course! If maintaining the same layout as your MS, then I quite agree with him. Good luck!
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by Fred G. Unn »

I've worked on several large projects like this and actually just finished the score to a similarly sized project just before Xmas. For this work the instrumentation was full orchestra with two solo guitars, a solo cello, two different choirs and several vocal soloists. The final score was 361 pages of music, plus whatever text the composer had in the introductory pages.

I worked much the way tismist suggested, although in this case we actually haven't done the parts yet, as the score had to be finished first to procure all the funding for the parts. The composer input the music himself which was ... interesting. He did lots of things in Finale that it never would have occurred to me to do like using the Text Tool for virtually all text. So that mess had to be cleaned up, along with lots and lots of other issues.

I fixed everything with the staves separated, then saved that file as a separate file that will be used for parts. For a score this large, obviously it is necessary to combine like instruments so I then went through and combined the way I usually do for orchestral music. I typically try to keep the staff labeling the same for an entire movement but there are some passages where this simply isn't possible, so I make use of Staff Styles to fix the naming and lay it out as logically as I can.

Here was a particularly problematic movement. The independence of the woodwind lines at the beginning really didn't allow for staves to be combined clearly, but this was still an almost fully scored movement. As soon as the independent section was over, I went back to combining like instruments as usual.

Sorry for the huge graphics. I usually try to put a bit more white space between sections of instruments than I did for the first page of this movement, but we were balancing size and space issues here. The systems with the abbreviated names are a bit more clear as I had more space to work with.

Image

Image
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Re: Typsetting a large MS of mine from 1994/5?

Post by MJCube »

Impressive work, both David and Fred! I just want to add that the entry method recommended by tisimst is also the way to go with Dorico, when they get the feature working that automatically combines multiple staves.
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