Score Order

This will likely be under development throughout my entire thesis-writing process.

I don't know why, but for some reason, I absolutely want to have the Narrator at the top of the staff, always. If there is a conductor (and I still have a feeling I'll need one), I'd think it'd be easier to see. Because while the instruments will be changing throughout the piece, the Narrator will almost always be present, except for during the interludes. For this reason, it is my belief that whenever the narrator is being used, it should be at the top of the score, to facilitate things for both the conductor and the narrator.

I've got a few possible score orders, and will post my comments on them below.

fl
cl
hn
tpt
perc
pno
voice
vln
vla
vlc

...First of all, I don't like that the voice is below the piano. This is probably because I'm a violinist and I like to see my line at the top. Yeh yeh, violin-diva-mentality, whatever. But it's just easier for my eyes to pick out the focal line if it's either above the piano, or at the top of the page. Thus why there's also this possibility:

fl
cl
hn
tpt
perc
voice
pno
vln
vla
clv

...But my brain still doesn't like seeing the voice in the middle. I also don't like seeing it below percussion, because sometimes the percussion used will need a treble and bass clef, so the voice will be sandwiched between, say, piano and marimba. And it just doesn't look nice, in my mind. So let's try throwing it up at the top.

voice
fl
cl
hn
tpt
perc
pno
vln
vla
vcl

So there's that, and I like that one better. It does separate the voice from the piano, which some people might not like, and yes, the piano player might read from a score- depending on how many instruments are playing- but the piano isn't going to be the most predominant instrument; I'm using it mostly to add to the bass, and occasionally to flesh out the colours and add to the texture. It's not going to be very soloistic in this. (Sorry pianists!) SO with this being the case, I've wrangled things around again:

voice
fl
cl
hn
tpt
vln
vla
vlc
perc
pno

So the voice is at the top, and the piano is at the bottom- this, for some reason, makes the mose sense in my head. The piano is being used for an accompaniment purpose in this piece, so I want it at the bottom- because it's accompanying the ensemble, not the voice in particular. The voice is somehat separate from the ensemble, hence why it is at the top, followed by the melodic instruments, leading down to percussion and piano. This is my favourite score order, but I'm going to have to look at other pieces for narrator/voice and chamber ensemble to see what other people do, and why they do it.