Bottom staff is horns 3 and 4, so it means that it is only the third horn.
I find the "(-4)" indication redundant and confusing.
The players will not be seeing this information. It is only for the score.Now that I know what it means, yes, me too. However, I am not a horn player; maybe a good horn player would not find that confusing?
Thanks!
The players will not be seeing this information. It is only for the score.
I'm almost certain that the (-4) marking would mean that the 4th horn has the passage cued in their part so that if the composer or conductor wants a bigger horn sound (4 instead of 3) they have that option.
Players have their own parts. Horn 3 will have music in those two bars. Horn 4 will have rests.Oh. So then how would the hn#4 know not to play? I guess the conductor could tell him/her, but is that how it's done? Shouldn't that info be on the page?
And why not just write "a1"?
I'm almost certain that the (-4) marking would mean that the 4th horn has the passage cued in their part so that if the composer or conductor wants a bigger horn sound (4 instead of 3) they have that option.
Yes, I would never use the -4. Totally unnecessary, and all it would do would be to get a question from the floor.Personally, I find the "(-4)" indication redundant and confusing. I would not use that unless there was something else in the score that required clarification. (Perhaps there was something in the previous measures of this score that led to the indication being used.)
As a copyist and orchestrator, anything that makes me pause for a fraction of a second to think what is intended is a potential problem.
Players have their own parts.
But don't the first two horn players get the music for Horn 1,2, and the other two get the music for Horns 3,4?
Or are the parts broken down in four parts, one for each horn?
You don't want the horn player tossing steak sauce all over the pageAnd why not just write "a1"?
In a studio situation, the copyists may choose to cue the 3rd horn line in the 4th part, but it has nothing to do with the "(-4.)". In contemporary notation the "(-4.)" indicates that the composer or orchestrator does NOT want the 4th horn to play there because they went through the extra effort to add "(-4.)" to make that point clear.