Re: relative pitch with song sections

[Brian Barker]

At 06:30 15/05/2014 +1000, Nick Payne wrote:
> I would say, based on my fairly extensive collection of guitar 
> scores, collected over about 40 years, that there are probably more 
> commercially engraved editions that omit the "8" than those that show it.

This is surely no different from the practice with tenor staves in 
SATB scores, where the "8" under the tenor's treble clef is indeed 
more often omitted than included. But in vocal music with more than 
four parts, and especially where the number of staves shown can vary 
from system to system, those little 8s are a significant help to the 
eye - apart from being technically required.

Elaine Gould describes these 8s as "optional", but adds (in the 
context of a full score) "the modified clef makes it easier to 
identify the position of instruments with such transpositions in a score".

Brian Barker