Staves reorder for a portion of the document

[igor68]

Hi all, is it possible to reorder staves for just a portion of the score? I am using orchestral order and the organ is above the voice. It is fine, but for a few systems music is only limited to just voice and organ and it would be nice if I could place the voice above the organ temporarily until the rest of the orchestra enters. Any suggestions?

I am using Finale 25 for Windows 10

Thanks!

[Michel R E]

my intuition, going on the scores I've seen, is that the organ part should always be under the vocal parts, with the string parts below the organ.

which would mean that you don't need to change the staff order anywhere in your score.

[zuill]

This used to be possible in Finale, but many versions back the change in how things work prevented the old option to reorder in just a portion of the score. There is a workaround: create a duplicate instrument for the organ, in the position relative to the voice you want for those systems. In the rest of the document, hide it. In the needed system(s), show that new instrument, and hide the original organ part. You can leave the music in the original organ part, and collapse it with a staff style.

Zuill

[zuill]

my intuition, going on the scores I've seen, is that the organ part should always be under the vocal parts, with the string parts below the organ.

which would mean that you don't need to change the staff order anywhere in your score.

That might be true in some circles, but there are different formats for different styles of scores. If the style does have the keyboard instrument(s) above the vocal part(s), then the workaround is needed.

Zuill

[motet]

Elaine Gould, for what it's worth, says the vocal parts go just above the strings.

[Michel R E]

Elaine Gould, for what it's worth, says the vocal parts go just above the strings.

except she does not give an example with both strings and organ/keyboard.

[David Ward]

FWIW I place voices above mandolin, harps, keyboards & strings in that order, but I also know that this is not strictly conventional, although it works, causes nil confusion and is never questioned.

[motet]

Elaine Gould, for what it's worth, says the vocal parts go just above the strings.

except she does not give an example with both strings and organ/keyboard.

She shows the preferred order for instruments, which include keyboard. She then says for a small ensemble, place the vocal part above the keyboard as an aid to the keyboardist; for a large ensemble, above the strings. Perhaps here it depends if the keyboardist is reading the full score.

See below for an excerpt from Tosca including an organ part.

I don't think this particular question has a cast-in-stone answer. Your answer is as good as any, but I think it's always good to try to answer the person's question rather than talk them out of it, unless they've clearly gone astray.

[motet]

Another example from Il Trovatore:

0514.png (116.73 KiB) Viewed 2335 times

For what it's worth, the voices are below the organ even when the organ is the only thing playing.

0515.png (83.61 KiB) Viewed 2324 times

[igor68]

Thanks all! According to the most recent orchestration book by Adler, all of the keyboard instruments in the orchestral setting must go above any vocals. The setting for chamber ensemble (not chamber orchestra) usually follows different order. In finale it is named "Custom" setting. I thought it would be possible to switch between orchestral and custom setting at any point in the document. It would be logical, right?

I would have to go with creating the same part, one above, another one below the organ and use the hide mode.

Thanks again!

[zuill]

If there is only 1 staff for the voice, it would probably be easier to create a second vocal staff for this scenario. I was thinking 4 part choral, but a single line vocal would be simpler than adding a 2 or 3 staff organ part for just these few systems.

Another way is to have a complete set of Organ and Voice at the bottom of the score and hide everything else at that point. That might save spacing issues between staves in all the other systems in the score. It's hard to advise without seeing the score.

Zuill