Score pages 'taller' than Legal paper?

• Oct 2, 2022 - 14:50

This WIP composition has grown to 19 staves. I've been constantly trying to get everything onto a sufficiently tall page. I've tried various Format -> Page Settings -> Page size options, and Legal paper has been enough.

Now at measure 9, I've been adding phrase marks, and know I'm going to, again, run out of page space. I have also tried reducing the margin settings on both even and odd pages.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Attachment Size
timbres_large_forest.mscz 49.53 KB

Comments

In reply to by bobjp

I appreciate you trying - you're a braver man than I am.

For now, I'm OK with my music existing inside MS, and being able to listen to it. If some WILD chance happens where somebody (or some organization) wants to perform the piece, I'll have supply the parts (no big whoop), and also find SOME way to get it printed out for the director.

In the "Browse repository" of MS scores, there are maybe 1 in 15 or so, really big scores - # of staves wise. I guess one marginal solution would be to print the full score in vertical 1/2's. Then tape them together. Or see what a professional printing place can do.

In reply to by Are Jayem

Just for the fun of it, I resized your score to Letter and set the Staff Space to 1.55mm. Still very legible. and a fun piece.

I too, write mostly for myself as therapy. But you never know when the opportunity for a performance might, for some strange reason, present itself. Pays to be ready.

FWIW, legal is a pretty awkward size for scores. It encourages staff sizes on the relatively large size, but then doesn't provide much width to fit a reasonable number of measures per page. So you end up with more pages than you would with either smaller staves on smaller paper or with larger staves on larger paper. Ensemble scores are almost never published that way. Instead, pick a page size that has more "normal" aspect ratio, and then a staff size to fit. Letter paper with small staves is fine for study scores, although you probably don't want to go any less than 1 mm for the staff space. In the US, the next easily available size would be "tabloid" - 11x17. That's pretty common among people who either don't care about printing, or people wanting to self-publish, since any copy shop should be able to handle that. It's actually kind of awkwardly large to work with on a music stand, though. 9x12 is pretty common in professionally-published scores, but then, other custom sizes are also possible. If you intend to self-publish, copy shops can usually do 9x12, but only by cutting to size, so it would be more expensive.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.