Bars per System
Some of the “rules” of music notation are really more appropriately considered “ideals, if you can manage it.” One of these is the desire to set four bars per system.
Often, this is great idea. So much music is based on phrases of four bars, and if you can keep a phrase intact, it is easier to read. Here’s an example of where this works out nicely.
But what if there was a busy bee-like accompaniment, say sixteenth note runs? Fitting four bars per system here would be pretty hard to read, even if we reduced the notation size to make it fit.
Tempting would be to set just two bars per line. This would preserve some sub-phrases and give the sixteenth notes room. However, it would also make the score a lot choppier to read, not only because of the system breaks, but also the additional page breaks that would be required. Figuring three systems per page, we’d need five pages, which is very obnoxious on a music stand or piano desk.
In this case, the best compromise would be three bars per line for the first two systems. Overall, this would be the most readable solution, and the whole piece would fit on three pages—relatively managable. Though the phrases don’t correspond to the systems, the notes are all clear, and this needs to be the primary consideration, in an imperfect world.
I might vary the number of bars per system, to make page breaks easier, and to generally cause logical groupings, where appropriate. The important thing is to let go of the sense that “the rule says four bars per line,” and to choose a measure layout that provides for the most readable score.
