First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Have your scores reviewed by other users. Comment on old and new published scores and on publishers.
Post Reply
User avatar
snake_cake
Posts: 5
Joined: 05 Apr 2022, 18:10
Location: Barcelona
Contact:

First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by snake_cake »

Hi!

I'd like to share the score of a piece I wrote a few months ago. I'd like feedback on the music typeset, the fonts used, and the cover.

I've read Elaine Gould's book and tried to learn some graphic design on my own, but I've never gotten feedback on any of that kind of stuff.

score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15bKxMN ... sp=sharing

Thanks!
Sibelius/Noteperformer/Photoshop/Gimp/Inkscape

Engineer and self-taught composer.
www.albertdelaf.com
benwiggy
Posts: 835
Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by benwiggy »

Welcome!

Lovely bit of work. I'd suggest that the slurs and ties are a bit thick; and some of the little ones on page 9 need adjustment, being too 'horse-shoe' shaped.
The piano brace should have some air between it and the system.

What fonts have you used? They're very nice. Bodoni for the titling and a Modern for the rest?
MalteM
Posts: 67
Joined: 07 Aug 2018, 18:26

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by MalteM »

I’m not a typesetting/engraving expert but here are some details that I think could improve legibility:

1st movement
• Stem directions m. 5–11, 18–20, 31–44 (and many other), left hand: I’d prefer downward stems for the quarter notes, upward for the shorter ones; this is some kind of polyphony with the quarter notes being the lower voice. → See m. 71 for a well done example.
• Tuplet brackets m. 22, 23, 65, left hand: they need more space between each other and to the barlines.
• Presence of tuplet brackets: you probably don’t need them in m. 116–117, you definitely don’t need them in m. 118–119.
• Placement of tuplet brackets m. 65, 67, 69: That’s not optimal because the staves are very far apart. Maybe one could try to put them outside the staves (and omit them in m. 69 like in the following measures).
• Horizontal spacing m. 89–94: I’d try to space the stems evenly across the beams. This means uneven spacing of noteheads but better readability.
• Single cross staff note m. 29: I’d write the c in the lower staff and let the pianist decide the distribution on the hands (you might add a hook for “this note should be played by the right hand” like you did at some other places)
• Cautionary accidental m. 40: d natural like in m. 42
• Double barline m. 44/45: does not look right to me, because there is a double bar line two measures later.

2nd movement
• Cross staff slurs m. 21–24: ugly, not easy to understand; I’d prefer simple upward slurs instead of the S shape. Additionally you might try to beam the 3rd and 4th eighth, but I’m not sure about this.

3rd movement
• Single cross staff notes m. 9, 11: see my comment on first movement m. 29
• Alternating time signature m. 29, 82: Looks like 63/84 to me, needs more space
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Overall very nice! A few comments in addition to the above.

• I'm not sure what the accidental settings are in Sibelius, but I'm always bugged by Sib output that sometimes has accidentals closer to the previous note than the note the accidental is modifying. In m12, 82, etc., I would add a bit more space before the accidental. Left hand m83 it even looks like the accidental is colliding with the barline. Right hand m79, 82, 83, etc. the accidentals are colliding with the ledger lines. In other spots like m38 the accidentals are almost touching. Perhaps there are some global accidental settings you could tweak to get better results.

• For all the instances of po' I would use a curly apostrophe rather than straight.

• Is there possibly a kerning issue with the bar number font? m111 and 115 for example look sort of odd, like there is too much space after the 1.

• In quite a few places the ledger lines are touching or almost touching which drastically reduces legibility. m32, m79-83, 119, 121, 127, etc. I assume there must be some sort of setting in Sib to globally adjust this.

• Page 11, 17, etc. metric modulations typically occur over the barline. See Gould pg 172 for example.

• Page 15 you have a collision between the boxed metric modulation and the accel indication.
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by Fred G. Unn »

Also, depending on how deep you want to dive into engraving minutia, many of the beam angle and sit/straddle/hang rules are not being correctly followed. We had a recent discussion of some rules in this thread, but generally speaking, downward slanted beams that end in the staff should not end with sit, and upward slanted beams that end in the staff should not end with hang.

In m1 you have an upward slanted beam between E and A that ends with hang. In m2 you have a downward slanted beam between F and D that ends in sit. That's just in the first 2 bars so there are obviously plenty of other examples. This is admittedly pretty geeky stuff, but most publishers would consider the beaming in those 2 instances to be incorrect.

FWIW, here's the beaming I get with my own defaults:
Image
User avatar
John Ruggero
Posts: 2453
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 14:25
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by John Ruggero »

It is generally quite good. Here are a few general suggestions:

1. The triplet brackets are unnecessary for the beamed groups. And I would also try to reduce the number of triplet numbers to the minimum. If there are a series of measures with triplets, showing the first one or two numbers is sufficient in piano solo music. And if passages repeat immediately, maybe none are necessary.

2. The slurs and ties are too thick as mentioned above, which makes them difficult to shape; for example, the slurs that join grace notes to main notes are often too bowed and many other are problematic, for example ms. 21-23 in movement 2. This will require a settings change in your software.

3. The l.v. ties are too long.

4. The use of dashed lines for normal pedaling is unfamiliar to me. Is this your own idea? It could be confusing, since dashed lines are used by some to to show places where the pedal is only slightly depressed and held.

In any case, the thick solid lines to show the pedal terminations (and also the octave line terminations) don't match the dashed lines visually. If the lines where thinner and shorter, it would look better. Even better are dashed termination lines for octave signs.

The long termination lines in the coda of the second movement are interesting, but unnecessary if the pedal marks are brought closer to the staff. No pianist would misunderstand where you want the pedal to stop.

As I have said (probably too many times), the standard Ped. * system (with overlapping pedal shown by a series of Ped. indications in a row without * terminations) is to me the most efficient way to show pedaling in cases like your piece, and this gets rid of a lot of unnecessary lines. And for more complex cases, the all-bracket system without Ped. markings. Both are instantly recognizable to any pianist and don't call attention to themselves.

Along with reading Gould, look at a lot of well-engraved music by well-known publishers.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

http://www.cantilenapress.com
User avatar
Fred G. Unn
Posts: 435
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by Fred G. Unn »

John Ruggero wrote: 06 Apr 2022, 19:24 Along with reading Gould, look at a lot of well-engraved music by well-known publishers.
+1, I think this is really important as well. Gould is a great reference of course, and I refer to it often, but her book basically grew out of the Faber house style guide. If you think Faber is the pinnacle of engraving, then it's great, but she does differ on quite a few points from other respected publishers like Boosey & Hawkes, Schirmer, etc. (Personally, I'm not a fan of Faber's piano brace, or their slurs & ties in their publications.) Gould also contains no info at all on jazz/pop/musical theater music other than a couple mentions of repeats in "entertainment music." Her method of handling instrument changes for doublers on page 559 is just flat-out wrong in a jazz/musical theater context. (I think it's wrong in a classical context too, but that's at least debatable.)

Overall Gould's book is quite excellent, but I wanted to emphasize John's point that it's important to check out how other publishers handle engraving issues too. Obviously there's IMSLP for historical works, but most modern publishers have ways of perusing their publications online too:
B&H: https://www.boosey.com/cr/perusals/
Schirmer, Novello, etc: https://issuu.com/scoresondemand
Henle (many publications have a "look inside" feature): https://www.henle.de/us/
User avatar
snake_cake
Posts: 5
Joined: 05 Apr 2022, 18:10
Location: Barcelona
Contact:

Re: First post: Feedback on a score (typesetting, fonts, cover, etc)

Post by snake_cake »

Thank you all for the kind and extremely useful comments. Some of your observations (e.g. slur thickness) are spot on, even though they'd never crossed my mind before. Hope to keep on learning!
benwiggy wrote: 06 Apr 2022, 07:40 What fonts have you used?
I used Old Standard TT, and, indeed, Bodoni.
Fred G. Unn wrote: 06 Apr 2022, 14:08 I'm not sure what the accidental settings are in Sibelius, but I'm always bugged by Sib output that sometimes has accidentals closer to the previous note than the note the accidental is modifying.
I'd already tried to edit the settings a bit to fix that (it used to be even worse) LMAO. It's clear I need to figure it out better.
Fred G. Unn wrote: 06 Apr 2022, 15:54 FWIW, here's the beaming I get with my own defaults:
Image
Geez, so nice! it's incredible. Thank you!
John Ruggero wrote: 06 Apr 2022, 19:24 The use of dashed lines for normal pedaling is unfamiliar to me. Is this your own idea? It could be confusing, since dashed lines are used by some to to show places where the pedal is only slightly depressed and held.
Yup, I came up with this idea, but no pedal notation system satisfies me. The "new" system (solind lines) is very clear conceptually, but the solid line puts me off a bit because it seems it could be misleading sometimes (confused with the stave lines). I may, indeed end up using the old system (:ped and *)

Best wishes for everyone
Sibelius/Noteperformer/Photoshop/Gimp/Inkscape

Engineer and self-taught composer.
www.albertdelaf.com
Post Reply