Arnstein's Rules for Foolproof Orchestral Parts

[John Ruggero]

I prepared this document several years ago, came upon it recently and finally decided to post here for anyone interested. One may not agree with all of these rules, all the time; I certainly don't. But if you find yourself in a situation in which it is crucial that a first rehearsal proceeds without interruption or a performance takes place without a rehearsal, these rules could be very helpful!

Arnstein 5.pdf

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[dircknagy]

... finally decided to post here for anyone interested. ...

Thank you!
peace!
dirck

[David Ward]

Interesting indeed.

I certainly wouldn't avoid double dots where appropriate, although I wouldn't choose to use Bruckner's triple (and I think even quadruple) dots.

In rule 7 I see he forbids one of Verdi's regular rhythms in a fast tempo | | | | &c, which to me would look less direct with a tie in the middle of the syncopated bars.

As always, I suppose it depends on for whom one is writing.

[John Ruggero]

You are very welcome, dirck!.

As always, I suppose it depends on for whom one is writing.

Thanks for the input, David. I agree totally about that very common syncopated rhythm, but as you say, it does depend on the situation, and the situations can be variable. In those days, a team of copyists was sometimes required, time could be very limited, and consistency was crucial. And the parts might be played by a wide range of orchestras of varying ability, sometimes with very little rehearsal time available.

[Magnus Johansson]

Hey, all, and thanks, John, for an interesting document. Do the music examples reflect Arnstein's preferences regarding stem lengths and beam slants also?

[RMK]

Hey, all, and thanks, John, for an interesting document. Do the music examples reflect Arnstein's preferences regarding stem lengths and beam slants also?

Arnstein never used computer engraving. Everything was pen and ink.

I don't remember him ever talking about beam slants. Stem lengths were (in most cases) 3.5 spaces long (i.e. an octave), but you were expected to already know that if he hired you.

[John Ruggero]

Arnstein had no preferences regarding stem lengths other than the usual octave rule. Nor beam slants, although he did use the Ross as a reference, but disagreed with some of it. I actually don't recall him even once concerning himself with stem lengths and beam angles. He was more concerned about matters that could affect the performance. Of course, we are talking about the rough and ready world of hand copying, not formal engraving.

My examples were done 11 years ago, and I have no idea what I was doing back then; probably Finale defaults without the Patterson corrections and possibly touched up by eye if it didn't look quite right.

[Fred G. Unn]

This is great, thanks for posting! A few comments ...

Rule 6: I prefer the way Arnstein does it here ...

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... but did he have an opinion on this?

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I personally use Arnstein's notation, but there is a school of thought that the longest "legal" value should be used first here. Just curious if he ever addressed that situation.


Rule 7: I'm not particularly a fan of this:

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Breaking the beamed group more clearly shows the beat and avoids any possible confusion with a tuplet in 4/4.

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Rule 21: I know we've discussed this before, but as a player I hate just about everything with this, LOL:

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Cue into the bar obscures the entry, stemming on the "correct" musical side obscures the fact that it's a cue, ottava line just unnecessary clutter, actual rests pushed out of the way so they aren't nearly conspicuous enough, stem lengths of cues are too long and distracting, etc. An argument can be made that the slurs are unnecessary too, but could be context dependent if necessary to show a contrast or something from previous texture. I'm not a fan of a 1-bar cue, but in the absence of any additional musical information in the example here, I'd probably be inclined to do something like this, and would remove the slur too if not important:

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Rule 24: I think letter J has to be instrument dependent. For Flute or Violin I would notate the ledger lines here and not use an octave line. D7 is typically my cut off for this, and the example has one D7, but instruments such as Flute or Violin are certainly accustomed to reading up to C7 and prefer it to be notated with ledger lines. (It's not like a Piano where you can just shift your hands and use the same fingerings. With octave lines, a Flute player has to use entirely different fingerings up in the 3rd octave, so it's jarring to look at one note and finger something different.) It's fine to use octave lines to save vertical space in the score though.

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[Fred G. Unn]

Arnstein had no preferences regarding stem lengths other than the usual octave rule. Nor beam slants, although he did use the Ross as a reference, but disagreed with some of it.

For another hand copying perspective, Clinton Roemer goes into a lot of depth on stem lengths and beam slants. In general, his stem lengths tend to be a bit long for my taste (and when compared to Ross) but there is a lot of info on this in his book.

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[John Ruggero]

I am glad you enjoyed seeing that, FredGUnn. Probably only Arnstein could adequately discuss some of your comments. The paper only documents what I remember about his copying practices, not my own. I do agree with him about that example at Rule 7. I actually do much less breaking up of beaming than he did, but I am not doing the kind of work that he did.

Regarding the octave sign at J. It is only an example trying to illustrate some of the things we saw. I should have indicated an instrument, I guess. I don't recall him forbidding octave signs in any instrument but clarinet, however. Perhaps RMK will correct me about this or anything else that he feels is not correct.

Don't know why the stem lengths are so long in the cue. I will go back and "correct" some of the stem lengths. (As you know, this is not my strong point.) I do agree about the octave sign being pretty ugly, but that is what sometimes happened with his system, and I think I wanted to be authentic. Hard to remember; it's been a while.