Why did we change the sheet orientation?

BartK

So, in the 19th century, at least until Chopin's time but possibly later, the standard orientation of sheet music was "landscape" along the long edge rather than the typical "portrait" book style in use today. Music for four hands still mostly uses this orientation.

Now, since I've been playing a lot of four hands music lately I noticed just how much superior this orientation is. There is absolutely none of the "does not lay flat" problems that the book format has because the page is longer relative to the tension holding the spine together. Pages flip much more easily and stay put after you flip them. Lines are longer so it's easier to read ahead. The book does not extend higher than the music stand so it's easier to write in pencil on the top part of the sheet. The standard book tends to sag when I do that and there are no other books behind holding it.

Literally the only advantage I can think of for the standard orientation is that it fits in a bookshelf with the spine facing out like a normal book. There does not seem to be any practical advantage for a musician.

BTW, I realise that this is specific to actual printed books but this switch over must have happened long before electronic sheet music became available so I'm still interested in knowing why it happened.

ranjit

Very interesting! I don't know the answer either but you have a very good point.

pianoloverus

AI says this which doesn't mean I agree with all of their reasons.

Sheet music shifted from landscape (horizontal) to portrait (vertical) orientation primarily because portrait pages allow for faster, quieter, and more stable page turns, accommodate longer multi-page pieces efficiently, and fit better on standard music stands as musical works grew longer and more complex.Practical Reasons for Portrait OrientationPage Turns: Vertical portrait pages are much easier to grab, turn quickly, and flick out of the way during fast-paced or complex pieces.Book Binding: A vertical spine provides better physical stability on a piano desk, whereas wide landscape books tend to flop or slide off narrow music racks.Density of Content: As classical and romantic music grew longer, stacking systems vertically on portrait pages maximized the notes per page and reduced the total number of required page turns.Standardization: Printing technology and paper sizes naturally standardized around vertical formats for bound books and folios.

MRC

I don't think that landscape orientation was a standard. I possess 18th century scores where the pages are in portrait orientation. I think there simply wasn't a standard, and the apparent prevalence of landscape orientation might be due to economic reasons: binding the short side of the paper needs less material and takes less time than binding the long side.

In any case I am happy with the present orientation, which presents me with a rectangle of compact proportions where the notes near the left or right edges are not too far away. Let's say you are reading a passage where both hands play high in the treble, needing you to lean towards the right. If the music is printed in landscape orientation, and that passage is on a left-hand page, the beginning of each system will be far away, making it hard to switch visual focus between the score and the keyboard.

Duet players don't have this problem, since the first player only reads from the right-hand page and the second player only reads from the left-hand page.

Then there's page turns, a big issue for somebody like me who does a lot of sight-reading. The AI answer that pianoloverus posted gets this right.

MRC

I'll address some of Bart's specific reasons here.

BartK There is absolutely none of the "does not lay flat" problems that the book format has because the page is longer relative to the tension holding the spine together

In my experience, bindings either lay flat, or they don't. Good bindings work fine in both orientations, but a book in landscape orientation with a stiff spine is as much a nightmare as one in portrait orientation.

BartK Lines are longer so it's easier to read

Until you get to the end of a line, where the next bar is further away than it would be if the page was in portrait orientation. I also find it's easier to lose my place in a longer line of music if I am rapidly changing visual focus between score and keyboard.

BartK The book does not extend higher than the music stand so it's easier to write in pencil on the top part of the sheet

Yes, I'll concede you that one if you are playing from paperback scores. I hate the French scores from the early years of the 20th century, where the pages are too big and printed on floppy paper that tends to disintegrate.

But if you have a nice hard-bound score from Henle or the like, it's no problem!

BartK

Thanks @MRC and @pianoloverus for your answers. Personally, I would disagree with most of the points made by the AI but maybe better sight readers have a different perspective.

I don't see how one can fit more notes in the page in a different orientation. The page is exactly the same size only printed sideways. There are fewer systems but each one is longer.

ShiroKuro

MRC where the notes near the left or right edges are not too far away

This is one thing that drove me nuts when I played from paper scores and I’d have multiple pages spread out across the music desk.

ShiroKuro

MRC do you generally sightread from paper scores in book format?

When I played from paper (not sight-reading, just rep pieces) I would set up each score with backing paper (using double sided tape) so that the pages stayed together and I could have maybe eight pages across the desk at once.

Switching to a tablet was so great compared to that!

ShiroKuro

I took this photo many years ago (in our old house!), I had this score set up so that I could spread it out on the music desk and IIRC I only had to do two page turns (maybe, it was a long time ago 😅

/threaddrift

pianoloverus

BartK I don't see how one can fit more notes in the page in a different orientation. The page is exactly the same size only printed sideways. There are fewer systems but each one is longer.

I'm not sure but some of the old scores of music written for solo piano(not for duets) I've seen on IMSLP seem to have a lot more space on all sides of the music, so that could be a possible reason.

macuaig

Seems to me portrait orientation makes it easier to follow the music. Shorter lines vs longer lines, and easier to keep your eye tracking your location. A long horizontal stream of notes, of any complexity, would make it slightly more dangerous to keep track as you continually glance to the keyboard and back.

Why don’t newspapers print completely across the page? Much harder to read than using narrower columns.

MRC

ShiroKuro do you generally sightread from paper scores in book format?

In the days before music became available on tablets, that's how I sightread. Now, if possible, I prefer to read from two tablets side by side, creating the effect of the double page spread of a book. But if I only have a book, I'll have to go back to my old habits.

ShiroKuro

MRC two tablets side by side

Oh how I would love to have two tablets. Sigh. 🙂 But I’m pretty used to playing from the (single page) iPad, so that’s ok.

Another bit of threaddrift… last summer when I was getting ready to go to Japan, I knew that I would be able to use a rental piano studio, so I wanted to take sheet music with me. But I didn’t want to travel with my iPad, because I needed my laptop for work and adding the iPad to my carry-on set was just too much weight, one more thing to worry about etc.

So I printed out all the pieces I thought I would play or want to play, printing them on double sided paper. Then I used a three hole punch to put them all in a three ring binder, so I could just play from that, like a book. Because it was paper (not a tablet) I could put it in my checked luggage, knowing that, on the way home, since these were just printouts of scores I had back home in PDF form, if weight or suitcase space was an issue, worst case scenario, I could throw the binder away (unlike an iPad!)

In the end, I was able to bring it back to the states with me and so of course I still have it. I am planning another research trip for summer 2027, so I think I’ll do the same thing.

/threaddrift

ShiroKuro

Back to @BartK ’s original post… The Henle app lets you control the number of lines per page, which is nice, but with most scores (AFAIK) you can’t control the number of measures per line. Still being able to add space on the page ly helpful, and sometimes just spreading things out makes it easier to follow when the music is more complex.

Also, one thing I like the SoundSlice app is that it lets you re-size the measures themselves, so you can control the number of measures per line and of course the number of lines per page.

If more scores were set up to allow this, then the player could choose whether to play with a horizontal orientation or portrait. (Of course you’d have to be using a digital score though…)

TulipAcid

ShiroKuro

That’s interesting to know about SoundSlice! I will have to go back to it on a couple of numbers that are sparse enough or ridiculously too many pages and compress them.

Oh wait. Perhaps not. It did some not great things with voices split between staves (eighth notes crossing staves that were beamed together were broken apart) that I couldn’t fix. 😬 Perhaps there’s a way, but I gave up.

In other news, I wondered how much variation there was in measure numbers per line (system.) Is a piece that starts out in x measures per line always x measures? Is there a maximum number of measures per line? I’m talking about piano music, though I’ve looked at cello parts (classical/mandolin) and violin parts (classical/mandolin) and seen similar.

Answers:

No — I’ve seen works that started in 2 or 3 measures that went to 3 or 4.

The most measures I’ve seen in a work is in a Henle edition (printed) of Bach. The fewest I’ve seen is 2 measures per line (also Henle/Bach, a 32nd note heavy prelude.)

I’m sure there might be rules of thumb relating to the number of bars in a part or, some patterns around time signatures. Throw in repeats and second endings and who knows!

MRC

The only rule is what fits into the system. This depends on how many notes are in a measure: maybe only one, maybe none, maybe 50 or more.

Pick up a score of Ravel's Ondine: it starts with two measures per system, but later on there are systems with only one measure, or sometimes one and a half. Towards the end of the piece, there is a system with five measures: it's the only passage that is not full of rapid filigree notes.

ShiroKuro

TulipAcid It did some not great things with voices split between staves (eighth notes crossing staves that were beamed together were broken apart) that I couldn’t fix. 😬 Perhaps there’s a way, but I gave up.

Yeah, SoundSlice is great if it scans it in right the first time. But I have not had much luck making corrections with things that didn't scan in correctly. Probably I just need to spend more time on it, or search for some how to info online, but I found that it wasn't intuitive to make the corrections, and so for some things, I just gave up. :/

TC3

ShiroKuro As much as I hate to admit it, I find Google's AI answers very helpful when using software of any kind. It seems good at sifting through manuals and presenting the steps very clearly and concisely.

ShiroKuro

TC3 Google's AI

Yeah, I'll have to do that the next time. There are a few scores that have layouts I'd like to tweak, and I have a score for one piece that I cobbled together from different arrangements and kind of made my own arrangement. But it looks terrible. I would love to be able to clean that up....

WieWaldi

BartK There is absolutely none of the "does not lay flat" problems that the book format has because the page is longer relative to the tension holding the spine together.

⏺️ This is the reason I always buy my books/scores digital and print it by myself. I have a BW laser printer and I own a ring binding machine. Once it is ring-bound, the laying flat problem disappears completely.

BartK Pages flip much more easily and stay put after you flip them.

❌ Have to disagree about your page flip statement. Landscape page turning isn't as fast as in portrait mode. I have a free copy of the Thompson beginner method which is landscape. Printed and did the ring binding. I didn't turn the page within a piece under time pressure (beginner pieces), but still I can ensure each page turn takes longer because my hand has to travel a longer way. Furthermore, my hand needs to go all the way so the turned page is right in place and doesn't hang down. In portait, I can release the page after about ²/_3rd of the way. Much quicker.
About the "stays put after you flip them": completely solved with ring binding.

BartK Lines are longer so it's easier to read ahead.

✅ I think I can agree on that, it always boggles me when there is a line break and my eyes have to jump to a different line. macuaig mentioned, in newspapers they print many narrow columns instead of wide lines because it is easier to read.
True, but reading text is different. A text line is ~7 mm tall and it is hard to find the next line if your eye has to travel from right to left. Furthermore, we are not really reading from left to right. We are reading from top to bottom and see the text as a whole. With sheet music, a stave (especially our double stave) is so much taller, no problem to find the right line after a line break.

BartK The book does not extend higher than the music stand so it's easier to write in pencil on the top part of the sheet. The standard book tends to sag when I do that and there are no other books behind holding it.

⏺️ Actually, this is a problem of your music rest. They are optimized for better optic on the piano rather than being perfect practical. For that reason I always have a very thin hard cover book or thin wooden plank behind my scores. Doesn't look too elegant, but works. If I was concerned about the optic, I could easily get someting that looks nicer, like all black, or a plexiglass pane.

BartK Literally the only advantage I can think of for the standard orientation is that it fits in a bookshelf with the spine facing out like a normal book. There does not seem to be any practical advantage for a musician.

✅ True. Unfortunately with my ring binding, this (unimportant) advantage vanishes as well. 😄

The one big thing, you didn't address is the fact you can see more sheet music at once:

3 pages: Layed out side by side is just perfect.
4 pages: Layed out side by side is still fine. It get wide from left to right and is already a compromise, but I found I personally prefer to move my head more instead of flipping a page during playing.
5 pages: Is too wide in my opinion. But I can have 3 pages side by side and only 1 page turn is required. Furthermore I can turn the page when I am somewhere in the middle of page 3.
6 pages: Either you have to turn the page 2 times, or you lay out 4 pages side by side. In this case you only turn once.
7 pages and more: Is an issue in any case. I tried to tape 2 pages and turn them together, but this big arm movement for turning is a no go. In this case I usually end up with 3 pages side by side and I turn only the center. The extra side page safes one page turn. In case of repeats, it safes sometimes more than on page turn.

In this vid you can see, how I lay out my 3 and 4 pagers.

And here you see an example of a 5 page piece. 3 pages side by side. I start playing on the center page, continue on the right page, go to the left page and while I am playing the left page (page 3), I turn the other two pages. Only 1 page turn for 5 pages and I can choose a convenient spot when my hand isn't too busy with playing something.

Bottom line - I am very happy with portrait layout over landscape. The only caveat for me are the many line breaks, for looking ahead. On this point I have to agree to you.