IMSLP Forums

As a programmer for 3 amateur orchestra's I look for music which has the instrumentation for each specific orchestra. I use sources like Daniels Orchestral music handbook or Orchestral music in print. There I can find the scoring in standard notation. It would be very very conveniet if IMSLP would start to use the standard notation, and make it searchable. I know that this is not en equal standard for Danials or publishers but they are all about the same.

Notation like:
2.2.2.2 2.2.0.0 1.0 str
Means 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 0 trombones, 0 tuba, 1 timpani, 0 other percussion

Of course a decision has to be made which variant IMSLP will choose, and an extra info page has to be made so contributors can use it in a correct manner.

I am willing to add this notation every time when I check a work on IMSLP, and if more people add this will become a very useful extra on IMSLP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand ... umentation

We decided many years ago to have every workpage for large ensemble works to show the full names for all of the instruments because not every work is the same and the main issue with casual users is they may not understand what the shorthand numbering system used by publishers what the instruments might be for all of them specifically. It is more accurate to mention all instrument's names in full for a large ensemble work in general.

If you want to put in the shorthand naming, thats fine, but please make sure to list the full naming scheme as well below it as that is our main focus. I know its to save on space but on IMSLP we don't need to worry about that, that much.

If you want to contribute the system, I would follow what the Instrumentation field and the InstrDetail fields formatting exactly listed as seen on this page.