Score layout

I hope someone can help me with this . I'm cleaning up my orchestral score in Sibelius, and I'm not really sure if I should leave some of the empty staves there or not. I've looked through some scores, and the absence or presence of empty staves seems to be fairly arbitrary. Sometimes they're there and sometimes they aren't. Is there any sort of rule or guidelines for doing this, because I have absolutely no idea . The one thing I've done is taken out all the empty single line percussion staves, as all the scores I've seen do that.

In many scores, all the empty staves are kept in for the first page of the score, so it's easy to tell what instruments are used for the piece. After the first page, publishers generally leave out empty staves to save space, unless there's a good reason to include them on a particular page.

I disagree. i like to be able to see every instrument on every page in the same place as the previous page. I think this makes it easier to conduct. I find it confusing when staves are hidden and when I'm conducting for the first time every time an instrument comes in on a new page I have to look at the beginning of the stave to see what instrument it is. I guess this might depend on a personal opinion... do what what works for you =]

Originally Posted by cameronhiggins

I disagree. i like to be able to see every instrument on every page in the same place as the previous page. I think this makes it easier to conduct. I find it confusing when staves are hidden and when I'm conducting for the first time every time an instrument comes in on a new page I have to look at the beginning of the stave to see what instrument it is. I guess this might depend on a personal opinion... do what what works for you =]

Agreed. I know that many professional/conductors' scores leave the empty staves there, while study scores minimize everything and only show what's playing at the time.

actually, engraving standard says that the first page must contain all the instruments that are to play in teh score, and the subsequant pages MAY or may not have optimized staves.

as a conductor, I would MUCH rather have fewer pages to turn than huge expanses of empty staff.

many contemporary scores have taken up this bad habit of leaving all staves in all the way through the score. I disagree with this behaviour.

With a properly layed out score, there is no reason to be looking for instrument names at every page turn. (technically speaking, a conductor isn't supposed to be sight-reading an orchestral score either)

A carefully layed out score makes it obvious which instruments are which, even in an optimized score. score lay-out is actually an artform in itself.

Originally Posted by CaltechViolist

In many scores, all the empty staves are kept in for the first page of the score, so it's easy to tell what instruments are used for the piece. After the first page, publishers generally leave out empty staves to save space, unless there's a good reason to include them on a particular page.

Unless its a condense Score. otherwise You list all instruments in the score....Personally me I think Condense scores are bad. You should be able to see what everyone is playing or who is playing whan they are not supposed to...

I agree with QCowboy- turning page after page of empty score is a real pain while conducting. I'd rather only see the instruments that are playing.