I have searched a lot, but found so many disparate answers of different vintages, so I decided so as anew:
Writing a simple choral piece, that needs to transition between two and four staves. The voices are also sometimes into S1/2 where there are two staves only. To generalise the question and illustrate: What is the best practice to transition from either
I understand that condensing is not the answer. So do I make section players (SA and TB) and create divisi? And when on two staves, do I work with voices? And when for example the S splits for only one chord, making it SSA [up, up, down].
Hi @johile, here a possible setup (possibly there are better methods, I am not a choir expert). Just make sure that the divisi changes happen at system/frame breaks. Then use separate voices for the SA TB staves, or the same voice if mono-rhythmic :
Why not just use your second setup (your ‘into’) throughout? Switching from a piano- style SATB choral setting to open score one and back again seems unnecessary- and potentially confusing and more difficult for singers. Unless there is a specific reason for not doing so, I’d keep the whole work open-score for the choir.
It is fairly common to write in this fashion, at least when, say, 70–90 % of the piece is easier to read on two staves. It saves space and the harmonics are easier to grasp for the singers in my experience.
It may be more common for music written for say, church choirs, but concert choral music is typically in open score format. My point was that one shouldn’t, ideally, switch between the 2 in the same work.
