Re: [Best Practices] splitting and combining choral parts

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Simon,

> It always uses a consistent number of staves for the music (which might also 
> be due to the music)

This (i.e., the last bit) is the salient point. Look at essentially any opera 
or musical score (full or pianovocal), and a large proportion of [modern] 
choral scores, and you will see a great deal of frenching and part-combining 
and choral-unison-with-occasional-polyphony.*** 

And whether or not the particular example ("Wither’s Carol” mm. 1-17) that I 
included should or should not be in four staves is irrelevant.

I think it’s the perfect example to work out the best practices by which larger 
scores can/should be coded. I’m not really interested in tackling the final 
engraving of my 25-minute holiday suite for double orchestra, double choir, 
barbershop quartet, and children’s choir as the “test example”.  ;)

Cheers,
Kieren.

***  p.s. I couldn’t even find one example, in all my scores of pieces composed 
before 1900, containing a choral unison section of more than four consecutive 
measures. Anyone [counter]examples out there?
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden