Hi, All. I’m baffled and confused by Dorico’s bracketing behavior. Can anyone please help?
I have a score with Reed I, Reed II, etc. in the woodwinds, and I can’t for the life of me get Dorico to bracket them correctly. Obviously I want to have brackets for Reed I instruments, etc., but I can’t figure out how to get Dorico to do it.
I try to go into Engrave mode to manually bracket the staves, and it doesn’t show all the instruments. I try to fix the brackets in galley view in Write mode, and I can’t select the brackets. When I go into SHIFT+L and go to Brackets & Braces, selecting the ensemble type does nothing.
Layout options >Brackets and braces should be the first thing to check, before you start messing around with manual tweaks… So make sure you get rid of all brown signposts, then change the options to see if any of them fits your needs. If not, then use the manual bracketing feature (starting from the start of the piece).
Hey, thanks, Marc! Yes, I’ve done that in Layout Options and it does nothing. I’ve tried all the ensemble types it offers, and it does nothing when I click Apply. I have deleted all of the brown signposts.
At the moment, the bracketing is totally random. In setup view I have my Reed 1 group, Flute 1, Clarinet in Bb 1, and Alto Saxophone 1. In Write mode, Dorico brackets Flute 1 and Clarinet 1, but Alto Sax 1 has no bracket. It’s the same going down the page. In Engrave mode, Dorico doesn’t show all of the instruments, so I can’t just pull the little bracket down.
This is certainly weird. Is this file created from scratch in Dorico? Or is it an xml import?
Dorico brackets automatically two instruments of the same kind, providing it understands they’re of the same kind. Xml imports usually need an extra operation, changing the instrument to.. the apparent same instrument, in Setup mode, so that under the hood, the connections are clear for Dorico to perform its magic.
Dorico should follow your groups to create the bracketing (especially with the Ensemble option), and there are options in Layout options >Staves and systems >Labels to show those group names or not, IIRC.
Wait. I see now that Reed I is one player. Ok, so it doesn’t make sense to create a group. Are you going to show all the instruments that player holds, meaning you’re not using the instrument changes feature? That’s unusual — at least for me!
But it isn’t. As you can see, it’s completely randomly bracketing the instruments and not showing all of them in Engrave mode so I can fix it. It’s not grouping the instruments by Reed group as I have them configured in Setup Mode. The question is why and how can I fix it? I appreciate your help.
Why would Dorico not have the bracketing correct on its own template? This is one area where Finale had it better over Dorico. You could just in staff view select the staves and bracket them. People complained about Finale’s menu-digging, but the fact that Dorico has a mind of its own and locks you out of the ability to manually tweak things is so frustrating.
I went ahead and opened the Pit Band template, with no music in it, and, yeah, the bracketing is all messed up. It does the same thing. It doesn’t group the Reed I, Reed II instruments properly. In Engrave mode it doesn’t show all the instruments, in write mode I can’t touch the brackets, and it has one giant long bracket across all of the instruments. In Setup mode the instruments are grouped correctly. Reed I has piccolo, flute 1, clarinet 1, and alto sax 1. Sigh.
Hey, TonH. Yes, Reed I instruments are played by the same player. I want the brackets in Page View. I want it to show the Reed I, etc. groups on the first system in Page View.
This is what the first system of the Pit Band template shows in page view. It makes no sense. A bunch of instruments are skipped.
Except that that’s not what happens. The Reed I player begins on Alto Saxophone, but Dorico shows instruments that aren’t going to be played, and it also doesn’t bracket the Reed groups correctly. As you can see, Tenor Sax 1 is bracketed with Tenor Sax 2, and above that is Alto Saxophone with no number.
This bracketing looks ridiculous. And now I can’t remove the group 1 label from Reed I.
That’s not what I get if I start a new project from the pit band template. I get what you showed in your previous post, which is just as @TonH described.
There are not instruments missing. Dorico lets players hold multiple instruments. With the instrument change feature enabled for a layout, you’ll see all the separate staves in Galley view, but only one staff per player (with appropriate instrument change labels) in Page view. When you open the pit band template, with no music entered, Dorico assumes that each player is starting on the first instrument they hold, and labels the staff appropriately.
If you really want to see multiple staves for each player, then go to Layout Options > Players > Instrument Changes and untick “Allow instrument changes”. Then you can hide empty staves if you want, but you’ll also need to add your own instrument change warnings and labels, instead of having Dorico do it for you.
I hear you. And I get that. But as you can see from the screen shot above, when Dorico displays the page with music entered, it brackets the instruments incorrectly and shows empty staves. That’s the problem.
I don’t necessarily want to see all instruments for one player. I just want Dorico to apply correct bracketing, so that all of the Reed I, Reed II, and Reed III instruments are bracketed correctly.
It also has a funny “group 1” label next to the Alto Sax that I can’t get rid of. Do you not see how that looks funny?
But, look, I really appreciate your help. I’m going to start over again with a Big Band template instead of this Pit Band nonsense. Then I’ll go back when I’m not on a deadline and try to figure out the Pit Band stuff.
