Notation and Engraving for Scoring Sessions - Part 2 - Score Sheet

As I wrote in my last post in this series, when notating for scoring sessions, the highest priority should be to be as easily readable for the musicians. Over time notation conventions for scoring sessions, or sight reading sessions in general, have developed their own sets of rules that are usually expected at a scoring stage. 

Having said that, it's not that a session will be a complete disaster if you don't follow these common rules, however in certain situations it might make the result not as good as it could have been. Additionally, it should be noted that conventions differ slightly between orchestrators and also locations as I will demonstrate below. But generally, there are a few "fixed" rules that should be followed.

Today we focus on the conductor's score sheet and what should be remembered when preparing it. Generally, we should assume that the conductor is sight reading as well. This rarely actually is the case but especially with last minute deliveries or changes, it is possible that the conductor will see the score for the first time in the morning on their stand.

If time allows, most conductors will study and prepare the score, however usually not in detail as in the concert world. 

We also need to clarify that there are still orchestrators who deliver handwritten scores (e.g. Conrad Pope) with the majority however working in a notation software. Notation standards between the two are pretty identical. However, handwritten scores are a beast on their own as readability might become really tricky. Here's an example:

As you can see, readability is really an issue with handwritten scores, however session conductors and players have worked for decades like that and have developed a pretty good skillset to read those.

With printed scores, readability is usually (if done right) improved. As I mentioned above, the looks of score sheets vary slightly depending on orchestrators preferences. Below are three examples of session scores written in notation software, showing the span of the conventions (Warning: lots of scrolling ahead)

As you can see, they all look slightly differently but a few things are identical. So let's start with the properties that are fixed.

Transposing/Concert Scores:

With the handwritten score above you can see that it is a transposing score with for instance Horns actually written a fifth higher than they are sounding. However, the large majority of score sheets these days in sessions are concert scores meaning that all transposing instruments are written at their sounding pitch (except for octave transpositions like Piccolo/Double Basses). This generally makes it easier to find your way around in a harmonic situation but sometimes creates excessive amounts of ledger lines or uncommon clef changes.

Key Signatures:

In most cases, there is no general key signature written in front of the score but the respective accidentals are used in every bar. Reasioning behind this is that film scores very often change keys quite rapidly or their actual tonal center is not clear so that general key signatures would be more confusing than helping.

Time Signatures:

One standard in the session world are these huge time signatures as seen above. They are visually not pleasing but can not be overlooked which helps to not get lost. Do not use the regular small time signatures on every staff. The placement of these huge time signatures in vertical space varies as you can see above. Personally, I place them at the first staff of every section to visually guide the conductor where each section is written at.

Bar Numbers:

Every bar should have a bar number. It should be quite large and centered in the bar. Common spots for them are either below the lowest staff or above the strings. Sometimes we see multiple occurances of them over one page which however usually is not necessary.

Titles:

As much information as possible should be kept in these. This means that you should include the version number of the cue, the project title and the cue title. Also, every page should have that information as often we deal with unbound sheets in scoring session which can become problematic to resort if a stack falls to the floor and these informations are not written on every page.

Staff Size:

In general, try to make the staves as large as possible without creating visual collisions. Make the page margins extra narrow to get as much information as possible on the page, If possible condense multiple identical instruments (like Flute1 & 2) on one staff to save vertical space. Especially with large orchestras the possibility of having the staves too small to read even printed on A3 is pretty real. However:

Hide Staves:

Do not hide staves on a per page basis that are not used. We all know study scores of classical works where only the instruments actually playing are shown and the other staves are hidden until they start playing again. This should not be done in a scoring session. The instruments should always remain at the same position in the vertical space to quickly be found by the conductor. This only works if all staves remain visible all the way through the score. However, it is possible to hide staves on cues that don't use certain instruments for the entire cue.

Bracketing/Barlines:

As seen with the Green Hornet example above, one of the Hollywood conventions is to bracket each instrument group individually. This procedure originates in the handwritten tradition (see first example). However, mostly you see brackets around sections as seen in Alien vs. Predator. On the left hand side you see that sections are bracketed and instruments groups are sub bracketed. It is essential however to have a gap in the bar lines between sections and have them uninterrupted within sections. This is an essential visual guide for the conductor to find their way in the score. The uninterrupted bar lines as in the hand written example make this a lot trickier. There are some orchestrators who use interrupted bar lines between every instrument family which is really problematic to read.

Bars per Page:

The standard convention was 4 bars per page as this is also the unit that orchestrators are paid for according to the union regulations. However, with notation programs this often causes excessive amounts of page turns so now with printed scores this rule doesn not exist anymore.

Page Turns:

Try placing those on logical places (not interrupting a musical gesture) and not on the super softest moments in the music (noise during recording)

Page Numbers:

As with titles every page should have the page number, sometimes even written as "Page x out of y".

Instrument Labels:

Every page needs a clear indication of which instruments are on which staves. Not just the instrument itself but also how many of which instrument. The notation needs to be particularly clear for that, also clearly stating if condensed instruments on one staff are playing "a 2" "a 3" etc. or if only one player (Don't use "a1" but specify which player. E.g. "1.")

Tempo Marks:

Always use marks in bpm. No italian flowery tempo marks are necessary. If a tempo changes often the difference to the previous tempo in bpm is shown. E.g. if you change from q=100 to q=102, in scoring session situations you would see q=102(+2)

Count ins/Clicks:

Often the first tempo mark includes the information of the amount of count-ins, e.g. q=100 [8 clix free]. More commonly the count ins are notated as empty bars as also seen in two examples above.

Click/Conducting pattern:

In complex time signatures like for example 7/8 you might see an indication of the subdivision (like for instance 2+2+3). This indicates how the conductor would beat it and also how the click would be programmed.

Cues:

This is usually only reflected in the parts but often already put into the score sheets (hidden). In scoring stages we often have a bar counter visible for every player so they don't need cues as they can visually see when their entrance is coming up. Only in sessions that aren't played to click this might be benefitial.

However, don't confuse these kind of cues with optional cues that are very common in the session world to write in optional passages that might be played on the session. You can see this in the Green Hornet example above in the violas. Commonly, it is easier to write in cues for certain players and tell them to not play them instead of noticing on the session that it would have been good to double that line by that player but needing to print a new part. We often see such cues for instances in the other instruments of a section (e.g. Horn 1 shown a line which is also cued in Horns 2-4) in order to decide on the session whether it needs a section sound or not.

Percussion:

Percussion are usually notated on a "per player" basis and not as a staff for each used instrument. Often we have 5 line staves that each represent a player and change the instruments accordingly during the piece. It should be avoided to have a lot of single line staves in a score that incorporates many different percussion instruments.

Optional:

Hit point staff: Some scores have hit points, streamers/punches or count in remarks written on a single line staff above the top staff. This is often mentioned in film scoring classes but you rarely see them in the real world (except of streamers and punches are used).

Guide staff: Some composers (e.g. John Powell) like to have a staff that includes the chord symbols so that they can quickly spot a wrong note or notation error during the session.

"Col": Some scores indicate quite specifically if a line is played by two or more players who they play it with (see handwritten score Bsn and Cor Anglais). This is indeed helpful for the players to listen and match to each other, however it has become increasingly less common.

Bar Rests: In the concert world, bars where the instruments are not playing are filled with a whole rest. In the session world, it is pretty common to see these bars completely empty. Reasoning is that it makes things easier to scribble something in if changes need to be made. 

In the next part, we will look at the conventions for parts before we move on to specific notational issues in the following parts so stay tuned.