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Does anyone know which of Signature Editions are available as digital books? I only found and bought the Suite from the Sorcerer’s Stone. The Hall Leonard site search function does not give any clear info. I am doing a lot of mock-ups in Dorico mainly JW and Howard Shore scores. A digital score on an iPad while copying on a Mac or Pc is much more practical than using the conductor score size paper versions I have. I just ordered Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to get Fawkes the Phoenix and the theme from Tin Tin (Kuifje) for my next challenge.

Thanks for sharing the orchestral insights. I was strictly referring to percussion not condensing of flutes or brass which is « as usual » in the HL scores. These scores don’t really need more condensed percussion staffs in my opinion. They usually have two but it would just need some more practical reflection on the instrument distribution in relation to the usual physical arrangement of the percussion instruments to avoid players having to run back and forth between the instruments. I can confirm that in the two JW focussed concerts I have attended, both on relative small stages, the 3 players (+ separate timpani player) seemed to have made their own distribution of instruments to avoid too much mouvement and did not use the distribution suggested in the HL scores.

Thank you for the explanation. I agree that for a real orchestra the non standardized sometimes inconsistent percussion staff set up, in particular with one instrument being in both percussion staffs, does not matter much as each player will have an individual part score. Although I do wonder how such a score would look like if the same instrument is used in different staffs. I only have the full conductor scores as the full version costs with the parts scores are very high for just making mockups. It is obvious that single staffs for all instruments would lead to space issues. 5 Line staffs can be used for many instruments without confusion however e.g. a drum kit might have 10 or more instruments on one staff. Two 5 line staffs is sufficient for the limited number of percussion instruments in the JW scores but breaking them up in a more standardized way (e.g. one drums/others and one cymbals/bells would be helpful. In most scores there would also be room for one or even two separate tuned percussion staffs. In most cases one staff with changing instruments (often chimes and glockenspiel) would be sufficient although I did find scores where two tuned percussion instruments are playing and not in unison.

Most signature Williams scores show two 5 line percussion staffs. Tuned and non pitched percussion instruments seem to be distributed over these two staffs without clear rules. Does anyone has more info about the philosophy of this choice of notation? The two staffs definitely do not represent two players switching instruments. Also no logical player groups like e.g left and right side of the stage seem to fit. In some scores e.g Star Wars Main Title, instruments like Piatti even move from Percussion 2 to Percussion 1 during the piece. I have copied a lot of Williams scores (in Dorico) from the John Williams signature series edited by H. Leonard to create mockups using virtual instruments and use separate staffs for each percussion instrument and only after finishing the complete piece combine them in a percussion kit as in the original score but it would be interesting to know why these combinations are chosen by J. Williams, his orchestrators, or the people who prepared the published scores.