Notation and Engraving for Scoring Sessions - Part 5 - Shorthands and Efficiency

After we had a look at Dynamic markings and general layout issues with notation for scoring and sight reading sessions in the last few parts of this series, we're having a closer look today at a few notation issues that are very specific for the films scoring session world.

I'm talking about notation short hands and abbreviations. A lot of these have their origins in the times of hand engraving and copying where orchestrators and copyists needed to find ways to be more effective when hand copying material but some of the things we're discussing also have a very valuable reason to use still today.

Another part of these "efficiency notations" are verbal instructions that you would hardly ever see in a concert piece.

So before we have a closer look at a few do's and don'ts in this regard, let's quickly work our way through a few handwritten scores to gather a few of these shorthands:

"Col ...": This is one of the most often seen shorthands in handwritten film scores. It basically indicates if an instrument should play the exact same line as another instrument. In the first picture we see "col celli" for the double basses. Due to the standard transposition of the double basses which sound an octave below these two lines will be sounding an octave apart but that is standard procedure. In non octave transposing instrument, that instruction would imply to play that line in the exact same octave.

In the second picture we see different things. In the first two bars we see "Cues - Col 🠕" and in the second part "Col 🠕 (8🠗)" So the orchestrator even used a shorthand for writing "Col Horn 1,2 and 3" but simply used arrows to indicate which line he's referring to. In the first two bars, the instruction is to write in the parts of Horns 1,2,3 as cue into 4,5,6 so that at the scoring stage the conductor/composer can decide whether they need all 6 horns on these chords or whether 3 are enough. In the third and fourth bar, the doubling in 4,5,6 should happen an octave below 1,2,3 as indicated by the "8🠗" and should not be a cue anymore.

These repeated figure symbols are also omnipresent in handwritten score sheets and indicate the repetition of the previous figure. They also exist in forms of 1bar, 2bar or 4 bar abbreviation as can be seen below:

In the violas the dashes indicate the repetition of the preivous beat and the % signs of the entire previous bar. You can also see a "col celli" shorthand again.

Another common shorthand is to use only stems  if a note or chord is repeating as seen in the examples above. The second one being quite effective at this avoiding the need to write out that chord all the time.

One more thing that we see a lot in film scores are indications for players who they are playing a figure or line with:

What we also see a lot not only in handwritten score sheets but in many film scores are verbal instructions such as:

You see these verbal instructions give a hint at the musicians as to what kind of effect is expected from them.

Nerdy side note: All the examples from above are taken from Jurassic Park. This score, as well as many others by Williams from that time contain an "Eb Piccolo Oboe" (as seen in the Shriek example). This is an incredibly rare instrument and you can only find little information on it online let alone audio examples (the example being a piccolo oboe in F). Even most oboists have never heard of such an instrument. A few years ago, I did some research on this as Williams has been using this only in late 80s/early 90s scores and whether this was a decision by his orchestrators or whether he specifically requested for that. I couldn't find a conclusive answer to this but obviously, there was a musician in the session world in the early 90s in LA who would have such a piccolo oboe and was able to play it. Whether there was some personal relationship involved to use it in almost all of his scores from that time is hard to say. I can however see a use for this sound colour in the woodwind choir as it adds some aggressive reedyness to the sound which can be quite beneficial in action scoring.

Lastly, there also is the short hand of the "Lead Sheet Style" that can be seen in hand written scores and parts:

This shorthand excludes clefs and general key signatures after the first staff.

So this is what has traditionally been done. In fact the times of hand copying are not that far away. Some orchestrators like Conrad Pope still write scores in handwriting, however the parts are usually prepared copied at the computer now.

With the advent of notation software, many of these shorthands have become obsolete as copy and paste is much quicker than even writing in shorthands. However some of these are very useful for notation in the scoring session world as they make the musician's lives easier, so let's focus on these:

There is some benefit in using bar abbreviations, especially when there is a lot of repetition going on and the repeating figure is quite compact:

In such cases, it might be a good idea to use bar abbreviations. However there are a few things to consider. It might be problematic to use these over extended periods without restating the original motif as the player will remain focused on the "source bar" and at the same time keeping an eye out on when things are changing again from that structure. So it is necessary to restate the figure/bar at the beginning of every line and also beneficial to add small numbers above that indicate the amount of bars that are to be played with this repeating figure (as seen above).

As soon as the figure expands over a few repeating notes so it is not instantly possible to memorize it, you should NOT use these abbreviations:

Obviously, your player will need to read the bar for every repeptition in its entirety which makes it way more tricky to keep an eye out for the end of the repeating sequence. It will actually be much easier for the player to just read through these bars in the normal way with it being completely written out.

It is very beneficial to let players know who they are playing a figure or line with. This is especially true in relatively exposed lines and figures. In a way, this is the opposite of writing "Solo" to a line to indicate that the player can take some freedom in the interpretation of it. Letting them know who they share that line with helps them to intonate better with each other as they know who to listen out for to adjust their own playing with. However, don't overdo this. In a loud tutti, letting the trombones know that they share the same line with a bassoon will no help much as they might not be able to hear each other anyway even if they try. So this only makes sense of the orchestration is relatively transparent and the players have a chance to hear (and even see) each other to match their phrasing. Obviously, in a concert setting with rehearsal, such notes are not that important as the players will figure out in the rehearsal stage who they share lines/figures with but with sight reading sessions, this information can help tremendously to get a tighter version of a mixed colour.

Similarly beneficial (for almost the same reasons) are uncommon verbal instructions. For instance, the "shriek" example from above really helps to bring along the intention. Without that indication, the player might be tempted to approach this with a cultivated and delicate tone. But when reading "shriek" they know instantly that the desired effect is not to sound pretty. This is indeed something that can not be communicated through traditional notation without additional verbal instruction so it makes a lot of sense to let them know the desired effect. Again, if they had rehearsal time, they would figure that out on their own as they would get an idea for the context, but with sight reading, that verbal instruction will give you the desired effect right away. The "snarl" (on trombones) and "very tense" (on horns) marks have a very distinct impact on the sound of the interpretation, letting the players know what attitude is desired. Again, there is a fine line between useful information and going over board. Not every note needs a remark and in most cases, the context already explains to the players what needs to be done.

Thankfully, it is very cumbersome in any score writer to get to the real book style without leading clefs and key signatures. Under any circumstances, you should avoid notating anything like this as it really makes life a lot trickier for your players, especially when keys and clefs change throughout a piece. In most regards, real books should not be taken as reference for good notation practice.

One more thing that I already mentioned in the part about dynamics is the word "simile" or "sim." which is extremely helpful in many cases.

Let's for instance take this example:

Writing it like this is not ideal and gets even more problematic the longer such a figure would last. While this line is relatively easy to grasp for the player, in more complex figures with lots of accidentals, the redundand need to "process" every staccato dot can make things more complicated. Especially as it requires the player to really look at it in case there might be an odd couple of notes that don't have the staccato dot and need to be articulated differently.

So, even though, in score writers, it is more work to notate it like this (and will not play back properly), you should prefer the following:

In this case, the player will instantly know that all notes of this line should be staccato and they don't need to worry about that property anymore which leaves more mental capacity to process the other things. This even works in more complex situations:

It is clear to the player how the articulation in bar 2 and 3 should be done and when it changes in bar 4, the new articulation is notated again.

As with the abbreviations, this works to a degree that involves figures and passages that are instantly possible to remember. As soon as it becomes more complex or longer, the regular way of notating it without simile should be preferred.

Depending on where you place the "simile" it is also usually very clear what it applies to. If you put it below the staff, it will in most cases apply for the dynamics, and above for articulations/phrasing.

So, in spite of the computer allowing us to easily avoid all the shorthands from the handwritten notation times, in some cases, it is benefitial to still stick to it.