Stem Direction question

[JJP]

I believe RMK is saying, perhaps somewhat humorously, that musicians often will not complain to a composer, conductor, contractor (fixer), or music director for fear of losing work. However, they have no such reservations complaining to librarians when they believe something is amiss. This matches my experience.

[John Ruggero]

Or as Arnstein once explained, musicians don't want to get the reputation of being a "complainer" and will put up with a lot.

[Anders Hedelin]

Now I’m going to ask more performers and experienced copying colleagues about this to see if I come across a general preference.

In a number of healthy discussions here on how to write for musicians, I've often heard something like "they haven't complained". Which obviously sounds like guessing, fingers crossed. That goes for me too, who have a lot of guessing and finger-crossing on my conscience.

So, JJP's idea of asking the performers themselves isn't a bad idea. How many of you colleagues have actually done that?

[NeeraWM]

So, JJP's idea of asking the performers themselves isn't a bad idea. How many of you colleagues have actually done that?

I've not done this personally, because I am seldom there with the musicians on stage.
If the composer/conductor has had enough time to rehearse the piece, they will often come back with suggestions/requests.
In my experience this came especially from percussion players who asked for a different instrument disposition or staff usage in parts.

[Anders Hedelin]

In my experience this came especially from percussion players who asked for a different instrument disposition or staff usage in parts.

Yes, percussions are special. In their part I use to combine them all in a percussion score (usually without Timpani). This gives the players a lot of cues from their colleagues. How did your players want it written?

[NeeraWM]

In the beginning I was also grouping all instruments (timpani aside, exactly) in a separate score like you did.
Then, about 5-6 years ago, I started to get asked to write all instruments a player was being assigned to play on a single 5-line staff (similar to a drum-kit, let's say). Of course, this requires you knowing the player assignment, but I was lucky to work for a composer who was 20 years first percussionist in an orchestra.
Once, due to the complexity of the piece, the percussion part contained two staves (each with extra one-line staves for triangles and such), one for each player, to allow players to follow what the partner was doing. Here's a sample:

ALISMA_16-percussion-03.png (160.07 KiB) Viewed 152983 times

[John Ruggero]

Arnstein always prepared the percussion score himself and considered it to be the most interesting and demanding part. He was firmly against anything except a score (no matter how the composer had divided up the instruments) for the reason mentioned. The players of each orchestra may well want a different distribution of the instruments. Of course, there were exceptions made in special circumstances.

But with computer engraving, perhaps greater flexibility is possible? A percussion score from which the players could extract their own parts, divided up as they wish? Or the librarian could do it to their specifications?

[RMK]

Please, librarians have enough to do. Don't make them extract custom parts as well.

I often make individual percsussion parts as well as a percussion score so the principal has the flexibility to reassign parts or use a different number of players than specified. The tricky part is arranging for good page turns in the score.

Arnstein didn't always make the percussion score himself. I remember making a few for him.

[John Ruggero]

That seems like a good approach. I'm wondering of Dorico would make it easier or harder to do since it is oriented toward players rather than instruments.

During my days with Arnstein, I think he did them all and loved doing it.

[RMK]

I just finished a large project in Dorico that required this.

Three separate percussion parts and a percussion score combining all the instruments, all in the same file.