Stem direction for snare drum, question about other individual unpitched percussion instruments
Currently most, if not all, unpitched percussion instruments with one-line staves are defined to have stems point down when notes are entered. I'm pretty sure this is wrong for snare drum at least—snare sheet music normally has the stems up.
What about other instruments (bass drum, cymbal, etc.)? I know for many of these it's less common to have a dedicated part for a single instrument, and more common to have multiple instruments in a 3-to-5-line staff, but when you do have a single instrument on a one-line staff, which way does the stem normally point? Any orchestral/band percussionists care to weigh in?
Comments
Looking at the scores I have on hand, I don't see any obvious pattern. Some use upstems, others down, regardess of which drum we are talking about. Gould says both are common and acceptable, but points out that an advantage of upstem is that dynamics can be placed closer to the staff underneither (conversely, of course, other text can be place closer to the staff above if the stems are down, so I don't see that this really is a clear advantage to upstem).