NOTATIO

Hi all,
In a score for sax and piano, if the piano doesn't play for three or four systems (while the sax plays soloist-y stuff), is it considered acceptable to hide the piano?
I note Gould suggests to retain all staves throughout the score in small ensemble scores (p.522) unless it's for an extensive tacet. I'm currently deciding if 6 bars (3 systems) is 'extensive' enough? Probably not lol
Cheerio and best wishes,
Hector.

It is standard practice to drop the piano part even if it doesn't play for one or two systems in some cases. But a lot depends on page turns. It might help create better turns in the piano part if the piano staves are dropped. But if it leaves a lot of unnecessary empty space on the page, you would want to include the piano staves. (And I do hope that you are laying out the music with excellent page turns for pianists so they think kindly of you and will want to play your next piece!)

Your measures must be very dense for only two measures on a system.

Thanks, John! Great to get your perspective, and I appreciate the reminder about the page turns! I'm going to try my hardest!

PS: Yes in my piece the soloistic sax measures are dense with 32nd and 64th runs. When I was casting off initially, I could only fit one measure per system, but by reducing the size of the notes, I was able to fit two measures per system.
Thanks again!
HP.