Fingerings/bowings in piano solo part but not piano score

Is there a way to get the fingerings and bowings to show up only in the solo part and not in the piano score, while still being able to put fingerings in the piano part if needed?

Yes, you can choose on a per-layout basis whether fingerings appear. See the Fingering section of the Players page of Layout Options.

Hi Daniel,

I had already found that option, but the problem is that it is ‘global’, or so it appears. It does eliminate the fingerings from the solo line, but it also eliminates fingerings from the piano part :frowning: And there doesn’t appear to be a way to eliminate the bowing indications?

Presuming that your bowing indications are playing techniques, you can hide/show individual playing techniques on a per-layout basis using the Hidden property in the Playing Techniques group of the Properties panel (at the bottom of the window).

There are various ways of making larger selections of notes and items if you have a lot of bowing indications that you want to hide, including selecting a large amount of material and then filtering for playing techniques, or selecting a playing technique and then selecting more.

Thank you, Lillie - that was very helpful! I’m assuming that if I go back and add more bowings, I will have to remember to keep repeating this step each time I do an edit to the solo part?

Yes, that’s right, because there’s no native feature to hide fingerings in one instrument but show them in another within the same layout.

That’s unfortunate. I hope this could be placed on a ‘todo list’ somewhere, as the only I way I can see around this is to maintain two independent files, which takes away from one of Dorico’s biggest strengths, which is the integration of the parts :frowning:

You do not need two files; you can have two solo lines, one with and one without fingerings. The use two layouts, a solo layout with fingerings for the solo instrument, and a piano/solo score using the fingerless solo staff.

Two files, two layouts…, it’s another temporary solution, a trickery.
I also hope that it will be on the todo-list. It is very useful function for piano accompaniment.

Yes, I agree with EdmKlw - whether two files or two solo lines you lose the whole point of one of Dorico’s best features. I found this to be one of the biggest problems with Finale, having done several huge projects over the years. The parts and the score diverge and it is maddening to try to keep them all in sync. And very error prone.

I can offer solutions (and sometimes they even work). I cannot redesign the program for folks, and I’m happy to wait for the Dorico Team to work their magic.

If folks have time to wait for features to be integral to the program, more power to them. If they need some thing to be getting on with, then those of us (most of whom are users here) can offer suggested work-arounds.

I think some of you might be missing the point Derrek was making. In Dorico it’s very easy to change what will be displayed in the score, and personally I think that’s one of Dorico’s best features.

You can have this in Galley view,

but have the score appear like this,

and have the part look like this:

That’s all within the same file without much of a workaround. If you’ve already entered the fingerings, copy everything to the 2nd Piano grand staff (the one that will appear in the score), Select More 3x, then uncheck the toggle next to fingerings. Set the score to show this grand staff and not show the other. Use the grand staff with the fingerings for the parts. It’s actually much easier in Dorico than Finale. (I didn’t bother changing the staff names, but obviously that’s easy too.)

Derrek, every suggestion is good, even if it is used to the trick box.
Of course, this helps and people are also grateful for the many suggestions.
If a lot of people need a nice new function, it’s the right place to wish for it.
Waiting for the magic doesn’t make me happy, but if the new features are there, then :slight_smile:

I appreciate Derrek’s suggestions of course, but one hopes this will be read by Dorico developers who will consider adding some improvements. No offense intended at all. I’m simply making the point that in a hectic production environment, maintaining multiple copies of parts (for whatever reason) is a good way to introduce an error. It only takes a few slips for late-night “corrections” to cost 30 minutes of recording time, for example, because people are trying to decide whether the score or the part has the right notes etc.

I keep a “Working Full Score” that I never plan to print. It contains all the parts (or versions of parts) I expect to use. For example, for a musical number I would include not just the vocal parts and the orchestral parts, but also the rehearsal piano part. I never bother to format the working score.

In that score, if I make a change in (say) the bass line, I can replicate the change in the rehearsal piano part just above it to keep them sync’d. From the working score I can produce a Conductor Full Score layout (leaving out the rehearsal piano); I can produce a piano/vocal layout (with just the voices and rehearsal piano). I can make working layouts to isolate players. I might make a “solo/fingered solo” layout to make comparisons easy. I do something like this frequently when I import flows and find that I end up with multiple flute or drum parts; the composite working layouts let me copy/paste music from the various imports into the one flute or drum part I plan to keep. Later I can delete the extraneous parts and working layouts (except for the full score working layout, which I never delete).

Until Dorico allows additional options, I try to understand and use the strengths of the program creatively to simplify my workflow.

You can suppress fingering in cues, which gives a workaround if you’re not using small size cues elsewhere in the piece. And you don’t need to create a duplicate part with all the problems that entails. See this:


Show cues in Layout Options.
Set Cue note scale factor to 1 in Engraving Options.
Omit bar rests in cues in Notation Options.
Change the Short name of the original piano to [space] in Setup mode to suppress the Cue labels (or is there another way to do this?).

There seem to be limitations. For example, flipping the stem for the first two notes in the right hand in this Bach excerpt doesn’t flip them in the cue.

Here’s the file:
Suppress fingering.dorico.zip (500 KB)
I’m using the same workaround with cues to suppress lyrics when creating piano reductions for choral pieces, since you have the option to include lyrics in the cue or not. You have to make an Octave shift of -1 for the Tenor. You can make the piano staves size smaller if you like.

See this (cue labels not suppressed yet):


To say again, an excellent feature of this workaround is that changes to the original show up in the cue version, without the need to duplicate parts.

If you’d rather not have to keep track of duplicate parts, why not create some custom playing techniques for fingerings? PT can be hidden. And if you can set up a macro, it’s not difficult to quickly punch through these.

My macro looks something like:

  1. Shift-P
  2. F2 (I created a playing technique for a 2 fingering, triggered in the popover by this particular text, which is unique)
  3. Enter (actually have to press Enter twice, so you’d need an additional command in the macro)
  4. Right arrow to advance to the next note

I understand there are some situations in which this wouldn’t be ideal, but depending on your needs, it does allow you to hide the fingerings as desired.

My impression from the original post was not that sdb2 wanted to eliminate fingerings in the piano part. (When does one include the piano part in the solo layout?) Rather the desire was to omit the fingerings and bowings of the solo player in the piano score.

Yes, full-sized cue notes would be another way to solve the problem.