1. Show instrument change label at start of flow | 2. Using Percussion kit

Dorico
21

It does not fix it.
I restarted my laptop, but I do not still see the options.
I will send the file on the next Monday.
I am sorry that I have posted too lot posts on the weekend.
Please have a nice weekend.

22

There are no percussion kits in this project. Add a kit and you’ll see the percussion options show in layout options.

23

OH, that was the reason.

So, I did the followings:

  1. combing the percussion instruments in the first group.
  2. the percussion instruments are combined immediately without dynamics.
  3. In percussion kit window, I do one of the followings:
  • pressing the “Close” button.
  • pressing the “Close” button after applying the position of the instruments on the staff.
  1. Opening Percussion options in Layout options.
  2. Changing the percussion map options to one of the followings:
  • 5-line staff
  • Grid (default)
  • Single-line instruments
  1. The dynamics do not appear even if I change the option.
24

Finally, I have found a proper way!

Please reproduce the following steps if you want to combine percussion instruments into percussion kit when the player already has notes with dynamic information.

  1. Select “Duplicate Player” from context menu which appears when pressing the player name with right button on a mouse.
  2. Let us call the duplicated player as “perc 1”, and the original as “perc”.
  3. combine the “perc 1”:
  • adjust the position of each instrument on the five-line staff
  • press Apply
  • press Close
  1. Select 5-line staff in percussion map options in Layout options
  2. Select all notated items on all staves of player “perc”.
  3. paste it into the one 5-line staff of player “perc 1”.
  4. delete player “perc”.

This let Dorico retain notes, dynamics etc.!

Now, I do not need anything mentioned above and in other threads!
What I now need is a piece of graphical information on the legend in a score which will be inserted under the {@playerlist@} token. It is required often. I can do it as follows:

  1. exporting a graphics file of an informative notation with stemless notes and staff text on a 5-line staff.
  2. import this in Dorico, and place it under the {@playerlist}

It is great!
Thank you for helping me, and I apologise for so long and many threads regarding this.
Now I am a bit confident in using Dorico!

25

Well done prko. That’s pretty much exactly what I drafted on my phone (between Catford Bridge and London Bridge, for anyone who’s interested!) on the train earlier, before realising that I wanted to double-check it worked reliably before posting :wink:

26

So, why isn’t it the default setting to show instrument changes at new flows? It seems counterintuitive that you are expected to use Flows for movements, but not have the settings properly set up for them.
How are the second flute supposed to know that they go back flute after using alto flute in the preceding flow?

I learned it the very hardest way about this feature, and too late… I just used Dorico for the first time for a major project (I had done some smaller stuff already and thought it was time now to “make the leap”). In the final hours of laying out of the parts I obviously missed the fact that the instrument changes at the start of the flows didn’t show. This has now naturally created a very awkward situation for me where I have to embarrass myself and take responsibility for errors that I wouldn’t have tolerated from my bachelor students. Still, not saying it’s the software’s fault for my errors - but with so much else working out of the box in Dorico, it’s a bit counter-intuitive to have one or two settings not being set up the way you’d think they’d be.

27

My guess is that less than 90% of all part layouts contain music for more than one instrument, and, as such, Instrument Change Labels at starts of flows are a waste of space in 90+% of parts. There is no precedent for the presence or absence of a player or instrument automatically adjusting default Layout Options, so why would you expect Dorico to do this here?

28

In fact it is meant to be the default for part layouts that instrument change labels are shown at the start of the flow, and that’s something we’ll change, but as things stand that wouldn’t actually be the most useful default setting because the option will cause a label to appear even if the player only holds a single instrument. We’ll improve this in future, such that both the option is on by default in parts, and that it only shows a label if the player holds multiple instruments.