Does each percussion player get his own part?

Dorico
1

I am preparing the percussion parts for an orchestral piece. In the main score there are 2 percussion staves for 2 players, (pitched and unpitched) but what is custom practice for the parts? Do both players get a part that includes both percussion staves or just a single one as if I would do for every other instrument? I remember vaguely having read somewhere that the percussionists like to see the part of the other percussion players as well.


a second question:
When there is a long period of rest but the same percussion instrument is still being used, is there a way that Dorico can mention this to avoid that the player needs to go back half or a whole page to see what the last instrument was?

a 3rd question:
Is it custom to mention the instruments that will be played in the percussion part in say, the upper left of the first page? And if so, does Dorico have a way to handle this or should I simply add a text frame and type the instrument names myself?

2

There are no fixed rules here, I’m afraid. A publisher I worked for always requested a percussion score (all perc. staves in one part), but very often musicians would contact me directly asking for single parts as well. It’s of course dependent on the nature / complexity of the music (and the personality of the percussionists :slight_smile: )

  1. you will have to enter instrument reminders as text

  2. I’d say yes, but you will have to enter it manually

3

Orchestral percussionists almost always prefer a percussion score (but Timpani always gets a separate part).

4

Depending on how the percussion is notated, you may be able to use Edit > Percussion > Legend for Sounding Instruments to show a reminder of which instrument is playing at a given entry, but this doesn’t work for single-line or grid presentation types (since these are normally labeled in the margin using regular staff labels).

5

I went for the label approach which works well. Thanks!

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6

I may be old fashioned, but I was always instructed that reminders in a score should be in parantheses … anyways, it still makes sense :slight_smile:

7

I write the instruments at the top left of the page and also list instruments for each percussionist on the title page.
It is easy to make different parts, so I almost always deliver a percussion ‘score’, parts with say I/II and III/IV, and individual parts, often with flexibility so the parts can be covered by two, three or four (or more) players.