Hi,
I would like to know some ideas to manage a divisi change in the middle of a system. At the moment, Dorico can apply divisi changes at the beginning of a system, so if you have a divisi change in the middle of a system you have to force a system break or distribute the music in the existing staves.
The problem is that, if you have a short divisi, for example a two bar “div a 3”, that appears in the middle of a “div a 2” section, you can’t insert a system break as you would obtain only two bars on that system. You neither can distribute the music of three staves in two (suppose that the music is so complicated that does not allow condensing).
Any ideas of how to manage this situation, please? … I have this problem very often!
Thank you in advanced.
I think we need a picture.
Normally, if you have a divisi in the middle of a system, then you get automatic unison from the beginning of the system. No need to force divisi to the start.!
I’d try to avoid ‘nesting’ divisis, for the sake of the performers. What instruments?
What about using a solo instrument just for that system, then use the extra staff feature for solo instruments for expanding and contracting a divisi, and selectively hide the original and the solo staves?
Thank you benwiggy. I don’t have unisons, I change often from one divisi to another (2 to 3, 3 to 4, 6 to 5… some of them can be managed easily as they are multiple… the problem comes when they are not). This is an example with only a few notes. You should imagine that the music so quite complicated that it can’t be condensed:
divisi example.zip (1.64 MB)
I hope that now it is clearer.
Yes, this could be a good workaround, thank you! I think it would be a good idea to have this possibility also for section player staves… I would like to use the divisi feature all the time!
The pragmatic solution is to choose what notes to write on each of the two staves, and then add a “div a3” label to both of them. You don’t need multiple staves for short and simple divisi passages.
The players are not going to thank you for writing this sort of thing. They will almost certainly waste some time in rehearsals trying to decide who plays what, and then mark up their own parts to show what they are supposed to play!
Thank you Rob, but this solution is not an option for me… contrary to the attached example, my music is so complicated that all parts need to be written in different staves.
Then perhaps the answer is to write each on a separate staff from the start and use condensing in the score and the parts wherever possible.
Thank you Derrek. Do you mean this?:
This solutions would force to show a lot of staves with a lot of empty bars (imagine what would it happen if all string sections had this change at the same time, I would need to show 25 staves!). It also would show wrong numbering for the divisis and I think it could be confusing.
Probably the best solution would be that the “manual staff visibility” feature could be applied in the middle of a system… I don’t know if this is in the near future roadmap, but it would be great!