Best way to give a player a choice of instruments (possibly with different notes)?

Dorico
1

I want to do something slightly different from what one would do in a score that instructs a player to, say, switch from a Bb clarinet to an A clarinet.

I want to create a score in which one player has a choice of, say, an alto or soprano recorder. If the player chooses to play soprano recorder, there are some notes that are below the instrument’s range, so the player should play different notes in those circumstances, but the rest of the part is the same.

There is an added wrinkle: Music for soprano recorder is normally written an octave below concert pitch; music for alto is written at concert pitch.

So what I want is for there to be two different layouts, one for soprano and one for alto recorder, possibly with some notes differing from one to the other, and definitely transposed differently. In addition, I want only one of those layouts to be included in the score.

How do I go about this?

2

If you only needed a different transposition, you could create a new layout based on the same player and use a transposition override.

But this method does not let you change any notes, since it’s still using the material from the single player. I think your only option in this case is to create a new player holding the other instrument, copy all the notation from the first player to the second, and then make any changes in the second that you need. You can exclude this new player from the full score by selecting the player in Setup mode and unticking the full score layout (or by selecting the full score layout and unticking the player).

The thing to be careful of here is that the music for the two players is separate – if you find a wrong note, for example, you need to correct it in the music for both players.

1 Like
3

I guess I could use an ossia.