Engraving Guidelines
At American Brass Press, we believe in high-quality engraving for all our publications. If you’re interested in submitting a composition or arrangement for review, do your best to make sure it follows these guidelines. This maximizes the chance that we’re able to publish your work.
NB: If these guidelines represent a significant barrier to entry, do what you can and send us your score as-is. We may not have the resources to engrave your piece right away, but we’ll do our best — our number-one priority is to publish great music.
Go through these steps in order, as they build on one another. Feel free to contact nk@americanbrasspress.com with any questions!
Step 1: if your piece has mutes
At the start of a muted passage, write “muted”. At the end of the muted passage, write “mute out”, so your performer has some advance notice.
At the start of the next unmuted passage, write “open”. At the end of an unmuted passage preceding a muted passage, write “mute in”, so your performer has some advance notice.
If multiple mutes are required for the part, specify the type of mute (e.g. “straight”, “cup”, “harmon”, “practice”) after all “muted” and “mute in” indications.
Composers often forget to mark the end of a muted passage — don’t forget! Be as specific as possible.
Step 2: if your piece has repeats
For each repeat with multiple voltas (endings), be sure that there is a final volta telling the performer to go on! (After all, a “first ending” makes no sense without a corresponding “second ending”.) The final volta should span one measure, and it should end in a horizontal line without a descending hook.
Please do not nest repeats inside each other! This is typically confusing for performers. (You can use individual “repeat bar” symbols inside a larger repeated section, though.)
Step 3: if your piece involves multiple musicians
Add boxed rehearsal letters at musically sensible locations that don’t yet have a marking. (For instance, there’s no need for a rehearsal letter at the start of a movement, or alongside a significant tempo change, because your musicians can refer to “movement two” or “Maestoso” instead.) Aim to have rehearsal letters every 8–16 measures, but this isn’t a hard rule. If you need more letters after Z, use AA, BB, CC, etc.
If your work is in multiple movements, but it has 26 or fewer rehearsal letters in total, don’t restart the lettering from movement to movement. If there are more than 26 letters, restart from A in each movement to reduce the need for double letters.
Step 4: if your piece has multiple movements
Make sure every movement starts with a printed time signature (and key signature, if applicable). Some notation software adds a “warning” time or key signature at the end of the previous movement; get rid of this if you can. (However, “warning” time/key signatures are welcome in other parts of your score!)
Step 5: double barlines
Add double barlines at structurally significant moments (e.g. the starts and ends of cadenzas, and the boundaries between A- and B-sections). These don’t have to coincide with your rehearsal letters, but they can!
Step 6: cautionary accidentals
At ABP, our policy is: use cautionary accidentals wherever they’ll make your piece more sightreadable! In particular, use cautionaries to remind your performers that:
- accidentals only apply in one octave (i.e. mark other octaves within the same bar)
- accidentals are cancelled at barlines (i.e. mark the first instance of that note after the barline)
Within reason, you can use cautionaries to emphasize augmented and diminished intervals, e.g. an E♭ followed by an F♯, if you think a novice performer is likely to make a mistake.
Step 7: beaming
(If you’re submitting an arrangement of a historical work where beams are used to indicate phrasing, disregard this step and adhere to the beaming of the original work.)
In simple meters like 3/4 and 4/4, some notation software will group three consecutive eighth notes under a single beam, but this makes them look like triplets! For clarity, break these beams along beat divisions.
Step 8: rest groupings
Avoid individual rests that span through the middle of a measure (e.g. in 4/4, a half rest spanning beats 2 and 3). The exception is rests that take up the whole measure, which are always fair game!
In compound meters like 6/8 and 9/8, prefer dotted quarter rests over units of “quarter rest, then eighth rest”.
If you know how to break multi-measure rests at phrase boundaries, we encourage you to do this! Performers will have an easier time reading rests of 3, 8, and 3 measures than they will parsing a single 14-bar block.
Step 9: if your score uses “simile” or “sim.”
Do your performers a favor and write out the full passage instead, repeating markings as much as necessary. It’s easy for performers to miss a “sim.” marking or forget to apply it!
Step 10: fermatas
Make sure every fermata is included in every part. For clarity, each part should have a note or rest of the same length under the fermata. You might need to split a note into multiple tied notes, or break a rest into consecutive rests, to accomplish this.
Step 11: parts, if your piece has multiple instruments
Create a copy of your engraving file to store your part-scores. (This is generally easier than doing everything in one file, because you’ll need to make some edits in the part, but not the score.)
In the parts, where a player has an extended passage of rests, provide cues (copies of music from other parts) before their entrance to help them orient themself. Make these notes smaller than normal notes, and underneath, write whole rests using another voice or “layer” of your notation software. At the start of the cues, write the name of the part they’re taken from (e.g. “Tpt. 1”), and when the player re-enters, write “Play” over their first note.
Step 12: if your piece has euphoniums
In your parts file, for every euphonium part, add a copy of that part in treble clef. When euphonium players read treble clef, they are pitched in B♭, and notes sound a major ninth lower than written. Set the transposition of the part accordingly in your software and adjust cautionary accidentals as needed.
Step 13: page size
Set your paper size to 8.5 × 11 for the full score and all parts.
Step 14: layout
Add page breaks (at the start of long rests, if possible). Although we are a digital-only publisher, many of our customers will print their purchases. It should be as easy as possible for a performer to turn the page in the middle of a performance.
Step 15: collisions
Don’t worry too much about this step, because we’ll be making adjustments on our end before your work goes to publication. But try to prevent elements of your notation from covering each other up. This might seem obvious, but it can be easy to miss small collisions.
All set! Your piece is now far more readable and professional, and we’re excited to take a look! To submit it for review, email lw@americanbrasspress.com with
- your score in PDF and MusicXML format,
- your phone number,
- and anything else you’d like to share.