Abbreviation for Euphonium?

• Apr 17, 2015 - 01:43

MuseScore abbreviates it as "Eu.", but I've never seen that anywhere else. It's usually "Euph." Is there some specific source that recommends "Eu." that MuseScore follows, or should this be changed?


Comments

I think when I updated the Instruments.xml file back in 2013 that my policy was to use two letter abbreviations whenever possible. Very often using more letters than that takes up too much space at the left of the page.

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

But where does that leave "Picc." and "A. Sax." and "Bar. Sax" and "Bb Tpt." (not to mention "Bb Tpt. 1", etc.)? "Euph." isn't long at all. For that matter, what about Tuba? MuseScore uses "Tu.", but from what I've seen it usually isn't shortened at all.

EDIT: Actually, Tuba sometimes is shortened as "Tba."

FWIW, here are the abbreviations and groupings recommended in a wind band context by Elaine Gould in "Behind Bars":

Picc.
Fl.
Ob.
C.A. (Cor Anglais, I assume?)

Eb Cl.
Cl.
B.Cl.
Cb.Cl.

Bsn.
Cbsn.

A.Sax.
T.Sax.
Bar.Sax.

Hn.

Cnt.
Tpt.

Tbn.
B.Tbn.

Euph.
Tba.

Stg.Bass

Timp.

Perc.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

That "Stg. Bass" is a bit of a surprise, but the rest of them I've seen before. I think Trb. is equally valid with Tbn.—at least, I've certainly seen scores use it—so there should be no need to change that. Euph. and Tba. have obviously been mentioned.

I'm curious—does Gould actually recommend that the abbreviations should be written without spaces?

In reply to by Isaac Weiss

The Stg. Bass is just for when it appears in a wind band; obviously we wouldn't use that normally. And I've never seen it either. She does list Trb. as an alternate for Tbn.

I do think there were spaces in her abbreviations, although actually it's hard to be sure because I don't know how wide the period is in the font she is using. I just omitted the spaces out of laziness.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Just one—going along with the idea of "Stg. Bass", I think that Double Bass should be abbreviated as "Db." (the "b" is a letter), not "Cb." If we're going to have distinct long names of "Contrabass" and "Double Bass"—and maybe add "String Bass"—then the short names should be distinct, too.

In reply to by Isaac Weiss

She doesn't say if that's in order of preference, so I didn't take care to preserve her order. But FWIW, the actual order in her list is Vc, Vlc, Vcl. A quick perusal of the scores and textbooks on my desk suggests they are all quite common, but maybe Vc. somewhat more so than the others.

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