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#70018 05/16/02 10:13 AM
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In 'versed, well-versed!', WordWind noted the following:
On a tangent, but related, I heard a very well-educated and accomplished conductor scold a youth orchestra musician for referring to a staff as a line. The youth had asked about a measure on, say, "The third line." The conductor scolded, "Lines appear on the staff. What you meant to ask me about was the measure on the third staff."
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In the choir I sing with the lines of music on the page are always referred to as a 'system' - has anyone else heard this usage?

My understanding would be that a 'staff' is to notes like the page is to words and is used for providing a notation method. Inevitably it has to be broken up to fit onto a page with each split section becoming a system in the way that words split into lines.

Have any of the other musicians got alternative terms for this? Is there an atlantic divide? Is it unique to my choir?

What do you reckon?


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System! That's the term. I was trying to remember it when this question came up in the other thread. Our director and the musical ringers we have in the community chorus AnnaS are in use that term. But then it generally refers to more than one staff, since we have SATB scores. Maybe two or three systems per page with four or more staffs per system.


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When I sang in a choir, many years ago admittedly, we spoke of stave and staves rather than staff and staffs. Don't know if this is common in the UK.

My efforts were more energetic than tuneful as, although I enjoy listening to music, when it comes to producing musical sounds, by whatever means, I am basically tone deaf! The grammar school that I attended had the conductor of the National Youth Orchestra as music teacher and the whole school took over a local church twice a year to deliver Handel's Passion and Messiah.


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stave and staves rather than staff and staffs.

And here I thought it was staff (s) and staves (pl).

Atomica says staff = stave, and plural of staff can be staffs or staves. So we're all right, then. Live and learn!


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I consistently hear staff and staves in Virginia.


#70023 05/16/02 08:33 PM
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Our choir director uses the word 'score' in this context -- a group of staves, like 4 staves for SATB, or 6 for SSAATB, etc. He will say something like, "Go back to page 7 middle score third measure," meaning the third measure of the middle (second of 3) group of staves on p. 7.


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Yep, you beat me to it, Boby. Most of my directors also used "score" in this manner.


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"score" in this manner

what connection with other lines...? [wonk]


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Scores on a page, as you use the term above, are different from staves. Scores are groups of staves with parts performing within each score (so-used above) at the same time. Staves on the overall score for, say, a clarinetist are the separate staves performed one after the other.

What would be really helpful here would be a visual representation of the various ways in which a score can appear on a page. For example, a conductor's score, an individual musician's score, and a choral score that has a couple of scores (used here differently from the overall score) of several parts. These three types of scores, for instance, all look different from each other. Language sometimes fails where a visual representation would not. It reminds me of James Joyce's attempt to represent a fugue in Ulysses. Impossible, really. You can't show in words how a fugue really sounds--verbal fugue or not-- but Joyce was driven enough to try to do it--but you had to buy into his language. Word has it that he never again listened to Bach after studying the fugue master for the chapter in Ulysses--said something like Bach now bored him.


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Scores are groups of staves...

How different? Isn't that what Boby said? [confused]

Interesting story about Joyce and Bach! I love anecdotes like that.


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Not different from what Boby said--just trying to make the point that there are many kinds of scores and that they all look different from each other depending upon purpose.

It find it funny, really, that choral scores include the other parts, but orchestral scores rarely include other parts for the individual voices of instruments, except, of course the conductor's score. Oh, occasionally on a violin score you'll see the measure that the flute plays before you're supposed to begin playing again, but choirs seem to need to see the parts--entrances, all that at the same time. Without meaning to give offense to choir members (I sure as heck am one), I suspect that it's because a lot of choral members aren't very good readers, so they need to see the scoring of parts on pages to see words, not as much as notes, to get their complicated entrances right. My daughter used to get very aggravated with kids in madgrigals who couldn't read worth a squat, but sang like angels--once they had it, they had it solid, but it wasn't from comprehension of notation. Lots of exceptions here, of course, but, let's face it, there's many a choir member out there who sortof sees what notation is about, but really depends upon practice, ear-training, and following mostly the words of a score.

Instrumental musicians, however, have to be able to read to play in orchestras. I'm completely discounting the whole by-ear group here instrumentally. Those by-ear people just blow me away as being privy to genius.


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choral scores include the other parts, but orchestral scores rarely include other parts

For one thing, there are rarely more than eight choral parts and usually only four. If the orchestral scores had everybody's parts it would be dang near impossible for anyone to pick out the individual part, not to mention terribly unwieldy for someone whose hands are not free as are a singer's. It is common practice among singers to highlight one's own line, particularly if there are divisi scattered about here and there. Early practice in choral scoring was to include only the part being sung. The present practice may be as much for the convenience of the publisher as for the convenience of the singer; they only have to print one version.


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WW,

I understand what you mean now. The word "score" indeed has different definitions, depending on one's viewpoint.


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I understand what you mean now. The word "score" indeed has different definitions, depending on one's viewpoint.

The 'staff' is equated with each horizontal line of music, as it is usually short for a pianists "grand staff" (the coupling of a treble and a bass cleff).

I've heard 'score' used occasionally by people to generalize "the piece of paper that the music is written on". Specifically, a score is most often the aforementioned 'conductor's score' (or as I call it the 'composer's score') and it includes all of the parts. A 'chorus score' will occasionally include a grand staff with an orchestral reduction (so singers don't get lost ).

I just call it "line X, bar X", but only if we are reading the same piece of music (as most 'jazzers' do). The word system is used (again, if we are all reading the same piece of music) as a linear reference. Bar numbers eliminate all confusion here.

Some of my favorite music happens when everyone reads "the same piece of music".


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Let me pose another question: What do you call the printed sheets that comprise a choral piece? Or, in other words, if you are singing I Was Glad, what do you call the printed music you sing it from? We call it an 'octavo', I think because of the usual size.




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Without meaning to give offense to choir members (I sure as heck am one), I suspect that it's because a lot of choral members aren't very good readers, so they need to see the scoring of parts on pages to see words, not as much as notes, to get their complicated entrances right.
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It's also got a lot to do with voice versus instrument. If you're playing the violin, then you know you count 8 bars of rest and then put your fingers in a certain position on the frets, draw the bow across the strings and you've got a C (for example).

As a singer, counting the 8 bars of rest is not an issue but, unless you have perfect pitch, coming in on the C can be. However, if you know that alto's are singing a C just before you, or that the violins play one three notes before you come in then you can pitch the note much more easily.


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Good point, rkay. I hadn't thought of that at all, and I think you've hit the nail on the head, which rings with a perfect 440 concert A!

Thanks for that!

WW


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Brilliant, rkay! Countless times, I have depended upon preceding notes to help me come in on the right pitch. Kudos!


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perfect 440 concert A

Not meaning to pick nits (it's the influence, you understand) hasn't A edged up to 441?

Meanwhile, back in Brazil, we would often tune our string instruments to the telephone's dial tone, which was an A.


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Depends upon the orchestra in which you're playing. European orchestras tune to a different A from American ones, which affects the overall tone quality. Baroque chamber groups tune to a lower A.

Interesting concept to consider, but I used the 440 concert A since it's one that most people have heard about.




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Didn't realise that American pitch was different to European! How complicated!
The choir I sing with is a Baroque Chamber Choir, so we always sing at Baroque pitch. Our accompanist is a complete genius and mentally transposes it as he goes along which is great, but it does mean you get a bit of a shock when you practise at home in normal pitch and go to hit a top A!!


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