# Orchestral score notation with tacet instruments



## Buddy (Jan 18, 2019)

When you're cooking up the conductor's score for a piece where certain instruments (oboe, clar, bsn, tpt) are tacet the whole time, do you leave their staves in as placeholders with extended rests or delete them entirely?

Less staves would seem easier to read, but then I could also imagine conductors' eyes get trained to expect parts in certain places and would prefer the placeholder parts. Insight appreciated.


----------



## JJP (Jan 18, 2019)

If the instrument isn't in a piece. Don't put a staff for them in the score. Doing so may make a conductor flip through a score looking for those instruments' entrances.

If you're doing a recording session for something like a film and have multiple cues with the same ensemble, then leave them in and merely mark them tacet at the beginning of the cues on which they don't play. That way when you're flying through a pile of scores, the layout doesn't change from one to the next.

Horses for courses.


----------



## Buddy (Jan 18, 2019)

JJP said:


> If the instrument isn't in a piece. Don't put a staff for them in the score. Doing so may make a conductor flip through a score looking for those instruments' entrances.
> 
> If you're doing a recording session for something like a film and have multiple cues with the same ensemble, then leave them in and merely mark them tacet at the beginning of the cues on which they don't play. That way when you're flying through a pile of scores, the layout doesn't change from one to the next.
> 
> Horses for courses.



Makes total sense, very helpful. Thank you!


----------



## Saxer (Jan 19, 2019)

I also leave empty staves when writing for a specific band or orchestra. So it looks more like a musical decision to have them tacet and not just written for the wrong setting. And in a rehearsal or concert situation it's easier for a musician to have an empty sheet instead of looking for their non existing part and get panic because they can't find it. A piece of paper with the song title and _tacet_ can avoid a lot of discussion.


----------



## JJP (Jan 21, 2019)

Saxer said:


> A piece of paper with the song title and _tacet_ can avoid a lot of discussion.



Copyists should always create tacet sheets for musicians who are not playing in an ensemble.


----------



## mikeh-375 (Jan 22, 2019)

JJP said:


> Copyists should always create tacet sheets for musicians who are not playing in an ensemble.



Spot on JJP and Saxer. One can also just mark the empty page with something like '3 pints max' or '5 Lagers' and a time duration, with helpful directions to the nearest watering hole.


----------



## JJP (Jan 22, 2019)

mikeh-375 said:


> One can also just mark the empty page with something like '3 pints max' or '5 Lagers' and a time duration, with helpful directions to the nearest watering hole.



That would have been dangerous in the old days at Abbey when they had a bar.


----------



## mikeh-375 (Jan 23, 2019)

JJP said:


> That would have been dangerous in the old days at Abbey when they had a bar.



Amen JJP, I spent too much in there.


----------



## JJP (Jan 23, 2019)

We had a rule to never record difficult horn parts after lunch because of that bar.


----------

