why a lot of classical look so disorganised?

[japzz]

without offending anyone
but....
before starting piano some two years ago I've been playing guitar for 40 years,started getting into jazz about 35 years ago doing workshops etc.....and one thing some of my teachers said about writing scores was this :take a white page of music paper and start dividing each line in four = four bars,makes reading so much easier as most pieces of music can be divided into "logical" parts of 4-8-16-.....bars.and after two years of piano and discovering classical music under the hood so to speak,this also applies to classical music.
So why music editors don't do the same when making the layout of their published works,both classical and light music publications?And I also noticed that,when i asked this question to the few classical teachers i met in the academy where i go for

piano and theory class,it's like the first time somebody makes them think about this issue
as if they never noticed this themselves.
is t it common rule in some academies to :
-divide the lines in four bars
-always use a pencil to write scores

sounds very basic but can save a lot of time and fustration

[lostinidlewonder]

I'm not sure everything can be written four bars every line because sometimes certain bars can have a lot of notes or very little notes and putting less or more per line is easier on the eyes. Also good editions take into account page turning, it might be awfully difficult to turn a page if all scores much be a slave to 4 bars per line and much more considerate to cause a page turn to allow some chance to do so without strife.

[j_menz]

I'm not sure everything can be written four bars every line because sometimes certain bars can have a lot of notes or very little notes and putting less or more per line is easier on the eyes.

Case in point, Alkan's Le Vent from Op 15 requires two lines per bar in standard notation if it is to be legible.  The more recent Bisel edition solves this by utilising an unconventional notation, though that may not be to everyone's taste.

[Bob]

Publishers will also look at saving ink and paper.  Or they used to.

[dcstudio]

I would use the term inefficient... and yes it's a drag.  It happens most often in pop arrangements...  sigh.

[Bob]

Those could use some work.  Someone would make some money making decent arrangements of that instead of the crappy ones they crank out. 

[indianajo]

I can't turn pages very well. I'm very happy if a score has bars crammed together when not much is happening.  It limits how long  I can perform if a piece has a lot of similar passages and I need to look to remember where I am.  The maximum I can cram on the piano is seven pages, using stuffed animals to hold the pages that won't go on the stand.  If it cuts the number of pages, cram things together. I don't need absolute readability, I need the score to remember which variation I am playing right now.  This 8 page score I play during Christmas season, I notated the arrangement myself with a #2 pencil, by listening to a source tape half speed.   

[iansinclair]

Not to excuse sloppy editing or publishing -- but one needs to reflect that while popular music scores in particular, and many of the basic charts for jazz, do divide neatly into four bar or eight bar groups (rarely as long as 16 bars without subdivision) this does not hold true for classical music.  For that matter, there is a remarkable amount of classical music for which bar divisions are more of a nuisance than anything else -- although they can help the less experienced musician keep track of where they are in the piece -- and four bar groups are uncommon.

There is always a conflict between readability of the score and such things as type size and white space and page divisions (remember, folks, not all musicians memorise all their music!).  Apparent trivia such as dividing the pages so that a page turn is possible without major contortions, for instance, can make all the difference in the acceptability of certain editions (Albert Schweitzer's editions of Bach organ works are models in this regard), for instance, or so that vocal music is arranged so that words don't break across pages.

[japzz]

thank you all for your reactions,some of them i already figured out for myself(saving paper and space) but nevertheless gavee a little more insight in why one would or would not do this division in four bars per line.
good practice

[quantum]

It is more of an engraving / publishing convention.  The theory is that dividing all systems equally (doesn't matter if it is 4 bars per system or any other number) will result in bar lines aligning across all systems on a given page.  Aligning bar lines across systems is thought to be more error prone in sight-reading and performance reading scenarios.  Thus engravers will intentionally offset bar lines so they do not align with adjacent systems.  This also goes if two consecutive systems were to be chosen to have the same bars per system - bar lines would be adjusted to avoid the alignment.

It may not be completely apparent in solo piano music why this is necessary.  However, when one gets into scores that have more parts with dynamically hidden staves resulting in a variable number of staves per system, this little detail in layout can be a definite help to performers. 

Of course that is not to say equally diving each system into predefined spacing is not applicable in other scenarios.  Transcription, dictation tests and orchestral manuscripts, just to name a few uses, could all benefit from equal spacing. 

[Bob]

Ah, yes.  I remember that from orchestration class.  Esp. when you use staff paper that's spaced out evenly, it gets really hard to tell which group of lines are together when all the vertical lines line up.