I hadn’t looked, but this surprises me. I can only imagine that more and more scores are going to be “engraved for iPad” going forward.
But in Berlin they had a full day talking about tech. They’ll get there for sure sooner or later.
Absolute staff size is essential for printed parts, on a music stand, at a consistent distance from the player’s eyes. And the standards we’ve established are based partly on being able to read hand copied and/or roughly reproduced parts from a century ago or more.
Vector graphics on handheld Retina screens bring a whole bucketful of different reading conditions. Even leaving aside the handheld factor (if it’s on e.g. a cellist’s stand, the screen ought to be much bigger than an iPad Pro) – computer output of carefully laid out music on such screens is readable at considerably smaller size than those rough old parts. Add in the distance factor when e.g. a singer is holding the device, and may wear reading glasses for bi-focus as I do, and you can comfortably read music that’s half the standard size.
We not only need new standards; they will have to be based on a lot of new factors.
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Heh, I got my first pair of progressives during COVID lockdown. I think I played one sightreading gig with them after things opened up and told my optometrist I also needed “music reading glasses” optimized for a music stand’s distance away. They work great though and I can see all the little black dots.
I’m working on a fairly large project right now and asked the librarian what output size he would like the parts to be formatted for. I was expecting 9.5x12.5, 10x13, or something similar, but nope, he said to format them for Letter! He said since there would be limited rehearsal time (as always for new works I suppose), the players will be printing out the parts to practice from at home, or just reading on iPads to practice, so it was better to format for the size they will mostly be using. He will print performance parts on 10x13 and will just have Acrobat scale them up. He sent me a sample Violin part that he had prepared as a model. I would think the staff size will be huge when scaled up, but that’s what they want I guess. Anyway, I think this is the first project I’ve worked on where the practice part size has been prioritized over the performance parts. Maybe that will become more common with tablets too.
Is it the consensus that 7mm is a good staff size for performance parts?
Generally yes, but consider the different distances of music stands for various instruments: Woodwinds each have their own stand and a mostly vertical instrument between. Violins usually share a stand and it can’t be as close. Even further for Cello, Bass, Trombones, percussion.
I was singing in a Beethoven 9 some years ago right behind the Bass Trombone player. His stand was so far from him that to make a marking he had to get up, pull his stand about 3 feet closer, mark the part, and push the stand back out so he could play again.
2 Likes
MOLA recommends 7.5, but no smaller than 7.0:
UE uses 7.5:
Boosey uses 7.0 for instrumental parts:
Personally, I generally use 7.4 (size 2) for parts, and 7.0 (size 3) for double staff parts. I think context matters though too. As Mark pointed out, some instruments have to sit further from the stand and probably have less tolerance for smaller sizes. Piano music that will be practiced until memorized obviously doesn’t have the same size needs as music that will be read (or sightread) at a performance.
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I went and heard the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra last night. I found it interesting that the cellists (3 players, 2 stands) were using iPads with bluetooth foot pedals during the performance, although obviously printed copies were available as backup too. Snapped this crummy pic during intermission with iPads and pedals visible:
They posted some rehearsal video to IG that clearly shows a lot more players reading off iPads too, although I obviously couldn’t see if they were using them on the performance or not:
(They’re at Carnegie Hall this Saturday night too. Hearing Branford improvise the cadenza on the Ibert was definitely the highlight for me!)
I would assume it’s fairly safe to say that we’re going to see more and more musicians and ensembles going this route and using tablets for performance, so it probably would be nice to have some “official” Dorico support for some common tablet sizes.
3 Likes
As an observation, it’s worth saying that on a paper page, margins are not just there as a place you can rest your thumb!
Margins serve an important part of the page’s visual design, and affect legibility. Your eye is drawn towards the content that it surrounds – in the same way that paintings have borders and frames.
While tablets do have a bezel round the edges (though the fashion is towards as little as possible, if any), I’d urge caution about leaving too small a margin on the digital page.
I’d suggest that drawing your eye to the start of the next line down is more difficult if the staves are too close to the black line of the bezel.
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Thanks for this! Looks like their staff sizes are fairly similar between paper and screen.
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This is the confusing part of Dorico Layouts, because MOLA measures differently than Dorico.
MOLA: “measured from the bottom to the top of the staff”
Dorico: “Space Size: {0.xxx’’ } . {xx.x} pt staff = {0.xxx’’ } staff”
It would be great if Dorico simply did both maths and also showed the same measurement which MOLA (and others) use.
Then, Dorico could indicate that more clearly (i.e. maybe change it so it says “xx.x mm staff bottom to top”, or add a second arrow). Because the orange arrow in the graphic indicates the distance between the space. I don’t know what the best fix is, I’m simply saying it is confusing to read the guidelines (or some ensembles have their own guidelines), and then try to figure out how to make Dorico match those awkward descriptions.
(Who would say “measured from the bottom to the top of the staff” anyway? MOLA Musicians, I guess. Isn’t it more common to say/write/measure “top to bottom”? Or more precisely in a measurement, simply say “vertical”. Technical Writers would know best. Just one more example of music standards being unnecessarily confusing.)
Maybe I’m dense, but isn’t the distance from bottom to top more or less the same as the one from top to bottom?
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I suspect any confusion arises from an expectation that the the color-highlighted space in Layout Options—>Page Setup—>Space Size relates to the (slightly) more prominently presented rastral size. One easy way to avoid this would be to show color-highlighted arrows for both space height and rastral size so it is clear that the smaller number relates to the highlighted space size and the larger number relates to the highlighted rastral size.
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I made a more detailed version:
XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<kScoreLibrary>
<pageDimensionPresets>
<entities array="true">
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Pro(13 inch)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad8thgen</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>563</width>
<height>750</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Pro(12.9 inch)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadpro12_9</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>559</width>
<height>745</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Pro(11 inch)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadpro11</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>455</width>
<height>651</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Pro(10.5 inch)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadpro10_5</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>455</width>
<height>606</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad (10th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad10th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>447</width>
<height>643</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad mini (6th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadmini6th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>406</width>
<height>618</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air 5</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair5</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>447</width>
<height>643</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air 4</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair4</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>447</width>
<height>643</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air 3</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair3</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>455</width>
<height>606</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air 2</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair2</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air 1</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair1</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad (9th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad9th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>442</width>
<height>589</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad (8th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad8th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>442</width>
<height>589</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad (7th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad7th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>442</width>
<height>589</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad (6th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad6th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad (5th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipad5th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad mini (5th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadmini5th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad mini (4th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadmini4th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad mini (3th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadmini3th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad mini (2th)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadmini2th</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>419</width>
<height>558</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air(13 inch)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair13inch</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>563</width>
<height>750</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
<name>iPad Air(11 inch)</name>
<entityID>pagedimension.ipadair11inch</entityID>
<parentEntityID />
<inheritanceMask>0</inheritanceMask>
<width>447</width>
<height>643</height>
</PageDimensionsPresetEntityDefinition>
</entities>
</pageDimensionPresets>
</kScoreLibrary>
Methed is similar to this:
Calculated Data
| 名称 | 高度像素 | 宽度像素 | ppi | 高度(英寸) | 宽度(英寸) | 对角线(英寸) | 高度(mm) | 宽度(mm) | Config Height | Config Width | 取整高度 | 取整宽度 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPad Pro(13 inch) | 2752 | 2064 | 264 | 10.42424242 | 7.818181818 | 13.03030303 | 264.7757576 | 198.5818182 | 749.7522294 | 563.517379 | 750 | 563 |
| iPad Pro(12.9 inch) | 2732 | 2048 | 264 | 10.34848485 | 7.757575758 | 12.93333369 | 262.8515152 | 197.0424242 | 744.3034486 | 559.1490273 | 745 | 559 |
| iPad Pro(11 inch) | 2388 | 1668 | 264 | 9.045454545 | 6.318181818 | 11.03357011 | 229.7545455 | 160.4818182 | 650.58442 | 455.4006726 | 651 | 455 |
| iPad Pro(10.5 inch) | 2224 | 1668 | 264 | 8.424242424 | 6.318181818 | 10.53030303 | 213.9757576 | 160.4818182 | 605.9044179 | 455.4006726 | 606 | 455 |
| iPad (10th) | 2360 | 1640 | 264 | 8.939393939 | 6.212121212 | 10.88591815 | 227.0606061 | 157.7878788 | 642.9561269 | 447.756057 | 643 | 447 |
| iPad mini (6th) | 2266 | 1488 | 264 | 8.583333333 | 5.636363636 | 10.26850555 | 218.0166667 | 143.1636364 | 617.3468575 | 406.2567151 | 618 | 406 |
| iPad Air 5 | 2360 | 1640 | 264 | 8.939393939 | 6.212121212 | 10.88591815 | 227.0606061 | 157.7878788 | 642.9561269 | 447.756057 | 643 | 447 |
| iPad Air 4 | 2360 | 1640 | 264 | 8.939393939 | 6.212121212 | 10.88591815 | 227.0606061 | 157.7878788 | 642.9561269 | 447.756057 | 643 | 447 |
| iPad Air 3 | 2224 | 1668 | 264 | 8.424242424 | 6.318181818 | 10.53030303 | 213.9757576 | 160.4818182 | 605.9044179 | 455.4006726 | 606 | 455 |
| iPad Air 2 | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad Air 1 | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad (9th) | 2160 | 1620 | 264 | 8.181818182 | 6.136363636 | 10.22727273 | 207.8181818 | 155.8636364 | 588.4683196 | 442.2956173 | 589 | 442 |
| iPad (8th) | 2160 | 1620 | 264 | 8.181818182 | 6.136363636 | 10.22727273 | 207.8181818 | 155.8636364 | 588.4683196 | 442.2956173 | 589 | 442 |
| iPad (7th) | 2160 | 1620 | 264 | 8.181818182 | 6.136363636 | 10.22727273 | 207.8181818 | 155.8636364 | 588.4683196 | 442.2956173 | 589 | 442 |
| iPad (6th) | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad (5th) | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad mini (5th) | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad mini (4th) | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad mini (3th) | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad mini (2th) | 2048 | 1536 | 264 | 7.757575758 | 5.818181818 | 9.696969697 | 197.0424242 | 147.7818182 | 557.9551474 | 419.3617704 | 558 | 419 |
| iPad Air(13 inch) | 2752 | 2064 | 264 | 10.42424242 | 7.818181818 | 13.03030303 | 264.7757576 | 198.5818182 | 749.7522294 | 563.517379 | 750 | 563 |
| iPad Air(11 inch) | 2360 | 1640 | 264 | 8.939393939 | 6.212121212 | 10.88591815 | 227.0606061 | 157.7878788 | 642.9561269 | 447.756057 | 643 | 447 |
| A4 | 297 | 419 | 841 | 1189 |
Here is the zip file of preset paper size, for apple iPad device:
iPadPageSize.zip (719 字节)
Effect Display:
Note that as of version 5.1.10 (January 2024), Dorico now comes with a Page Size editor (in the Library menu), so it’s much easier to create custom page sizes, without the need to involve doricolib XML files.
4 Likes