Convention of ending at bottom of page.

[John Ruggero]

OCTO. Thank you for explaining that. I have never seen the term (cont.) before. Perhaps it is now a standard. It does point out one disadvantage to having staves that are not full length, particularly in the middle of a piece: the musician might think that something was missing as you said, an thus the need to put in an additional marking. For that reason, I would avoid staves that are not full length. It avoids complication.

I am not quite clear about the first example. So the music after the word (cont.) at rehearsal 222 is a "hint" of what is coming on the next page? And then that same chord and rests appears on the next page as part of the complete long measure? If so, that would not be not clear to me and would prompt a question at the rehearsal, which is never a good thing.

I instead would make the "hint" part of the final complete line of music on the page your are showing, followed by the hopefully many rests that allow the page turn so the player is reassured before he or she turns, and leave the measure open if necessary and continue on with the rest of the measure where he or she is playing on the next page.

If the turn must take place during the 16th and 8th rests shown in the hint, then this would not be an adequate page turn and a VS or whatever can't change that. Instead, the page should end with m. 219, and if the tempo is very slow, with the word "time" at the bottom to show that the player has more time to turn at the top of the next page. If the tempo is fast, a V.S. might be needed instead of "time" because even the approximately three quarter notes and fermata is a not a great turn and would certainly justify a V. S.

Arnstein only allowed such a V.S. turn in extreme situations. Most turns took place during several measures rest. And if a piece had no such places, we would use fold-out pages or whatever was necessary to avoid bad turns. He considered the V.S. to be the copyist's "copout" and pointed to old badly copied parts in which every right page had a V.S.

[OCTO]

I have never seen the term (cont.) before. Perhaps it is now a standard.

I don't think it is a standard, but in these cases, where I used partial pages or partial systems, I find it very useful.

I am not quite clear about the first example. So the music after the word (cont.) at rehearsal 222 is a "hint" of what is coming on the next page? And then that same chord and rests appears on the next page as part of the complete long measure? If so, that would not be not clear to me and would prompt a question at the rehearsal, which is never a good thing.

I believe that it is not clear for you because you haven't seen the next page. It could happen if a musician plays "a prima vista" without actually seeing the part before.
As the "hint" is cue-sized, and the music that follows on the next page is a verbatim copy of the cue, I don't see it as a problem. In parts that are used by orchestral musicians you will find numerous their own pencil-handwritten cues that facilitate performance. I could of course skip the cue-size staff and leave to the performer to remember the last note of the phrase that finishes at the next page (c-eb), but very likely the performer would write it by hand.
In my part-making procedure I seldom fall in a trouble, but unfortunately there are cases when tempo is fast, measures wide, with very little rests (full measure) and thus a special procedure must solve that problem.
The example you mentioned was played numerous times (even by NY Phil), and there was never a question about notation or any oddity, thank heavens!

[John Ruggero]

I can well believe that musicians don't have issues with your parts, because they are so well done. OCTO.

But now I am even more curious about what happens on the page after the one with the "hint" at the bottom. Would you be willing to share just a little more of that part? I would like to see exactly what the page turning possibilities are on the two pages. I have a feeling that page turns are sometimes not easy to find in your music.

Yes, musicians often have to write in their own cues, unfortunately. When Arnstein's parts came back from performances, however, there were never cues written in. The parts were very clean. We only saw the hacked-up multi-measure rests and the penciled cues when we corrected parts done by other copying offices.

[OCTO]

But now I am even more curious about what happens on the page after the one with the "hint" at the bottom. Would you be willing to share just a little more of that part? I would like to see exactly what the page turning possibilities are on the two pages. I have a feeling that page turns are sometimes not easy to find in your music.

Yes, indeed. Sometimes I don't notice that an instrument is busy all the time, only when making parts!
Many years ago, I composed a piece for orchestra, and upon making parts I noticed that the english horn had almost nothing, just multimeasure rests, in a very busy score overall. Not democratic approach at all! (I fixed it before premiere anyway!)

Yes, musicians often have to write in their own cues, unfortunately. When Arnstein's parts came back from performances, however, there were never cues written in. The parts were very clean. We only saw the hacked-up multi-measure rests and the penciled cues when we corrected parts done by other copying offices.

I can imagine, that's good.
Parts are also very depending of what music is engraved. When making arrangements of old music (Schönberg/Prokofiec and back), I never get stuck with a never-ending measures...

[John Ruggero]

Thanks OCTO. I don't understand why didn't you put measures 222-224 on the preceding page. The turn is just as good at 224 and no "hints" would be necessary. Keeping the final section all on one page would be a lesser priority for me. I do think that a V.S. would be a good idea at the end of 224 as the page turn if the tempo were anything but very slow.

[OCTO]

Keeping the final section all on one page would be a lesser priority for me.

Yes, I believe that it was the main reason why I did it so. Just to keep everything on one page. [Usually when conductor rehears the last section, not to have turning in low dynamics].

[John Ruggero]

Ah, that explains it and is a very good reason to keep it on one page. Thanks, OCTO.

[Anders Hedelin]

OCTO, this may be small matter in your very well thought-through engraving. But I wonder about the horizontal line in m. 221 continuing with an arrow on the next page. As it is written now, the line might be conceived as an extension of the ord. at the start of it. Assuming that you want a gradual change to pont., would it be clearer if the line in 221 also ended with an arrow? Another very small comment is that the (cont.) before 222 on p. 11 could be smaller to match the smaller size of the notes to make it even more obvious that this is just a hint, and not regular notation.

I wouldn't have mentioned this if I didn't know how careful you are with your notation.

[OCTO]

As it is written now, the line might be conceived as an extension of the ord. at the start of it. Assuming that you want a gradual change to pont., would it be clearer if the line in 221 also ended with an arrow?

Your comment is plausible indeed.

The fact is that I use dashed line as extension which is placed at the bottom (such as _ _) and full line in the middle as change (—). So, I don't use the middle line for permanent extension:

lines and curves.jpg (226.69 KiB) Viewed 4024 times

Also, the arrow I understand as a replacement for "to", so instead of "to sul pont." is used "➝sul pont."
Perhaps for that reason I have omitted the arrow on the end of the system break.

Interestingly, in fact the sul pont. comes exactly on the beat (M222).
Still, "to sul pont." thus "➝sul pont." appears to my eyes more factual. If we compare the glissando lines that are found on the next page (M222), here follows the same reasoning: the glissando lines are as well "to-note", despite the fact that both notes at the real beginning of that measure don't play "gliss." (see Gould "Behind Bars" page 142).

I am thinking about idea that "➝sul pont." comes a bit later, should also the arrow be applied once as "➝sul pont." (a) or twice (b)?
For me it looks that "to" comes to early, and doesn't point to "sul pont.":

arrow a.jpg (21.94 KiB) Viewed 4024 times

arrow b.jpg (23.42 KiB) Viewed 4024 times

I just feel that the first version is more accurate. I copied that music back in 2006, so I believe that that was my initial thinking at that moment.

Of course, I would like to hear from other members what you think. I haven't found anything about this issue in my compendiums, maybe I have missed.

[David Ward]

OCTO I think your second example with the arrow showing at the end of the earlier system is unequivocal. I'm not a string player (although I was an adolescent cellist). I have used similar arrows for various effects on the trombone, which have been understood across systems (and I was a trombonist until old-age tooth problems made that hopelessly frustrating).

I agree with Anders that the arrow at the end of the first system clearly indicates ongoing change. A horizontal line without arrow might just possibly suggest something else (although one might wonder what?).