I was hiding the “to” and made a custom one with a space, the result now is that I can’t select it anymore and change it. Any way to make it visible again?
Unfortunately probably not! We need to add signposts for these hidden labels, which would appear if they contain no text, but until such time as we do that I’m afraid you can’t reset the properties for something you can’t select.
I just discovered this solution today, so I thought I’d post it to this thread (which I found on a custom Google search) - apologies if this is already well known.
To hide the instrument change “To x”:
- Go to Engrave mode
- Click on the “To x” text
- In the bottom Properties panel, click “Hide prefix”, and make “Custom text” a single space (blank text in other words).
Stephen, I believe this is exactly the same solution as gratokwski’s, 2 posts before yours.
Make note of Daniel’s comment (above yours) that you will not be able to select the label after doing this method.
Oops - thanks Thijs!
Related to this, it would be nice to have the option to always show the name of the new instrument when its music starts. Now it only appears (I think) when the entrance of the new instrument is quite separated from the end of the other.
Maybe it would be a good idea to have 3 options about showing these indications:
- both “To new-instrument” and “new-instrument”
- only “To new-instrument” (probably nonsense)
- only “new-instrument”
For the first one, there could be a secondary option box to choose the minimum number of empty bars that would make the “new-instrument” indication appear.
Just suggesting
I support this idea!
Just discovered this useful thread as I had exactly the same problem. Curious if updates since Nov 2018 have created a way to make this selectable again – doesn’t seem like it.
I’m also interested to know whether there has been any further discussion on this. I will eventually go through the score i’m working on and use the trick explained above to remove the ‘to x’ text form all my horn transposition changes, but it’s a major faff and I’m bound to miss some! This is perhaps a good example of a time you won’t want to give the player as much time as possible to switch as they’re unlikely to actually be physically changing instruments.
Related to this I think I have found a bug in any case:
I’m working on some Wagner, and he often writes bars of trills that end with a grace note (before the barline). This is fantastically easy to do on Dorico BUT in the case of a bar like this also being the last before an instrument/transposition change, the grace notes disappear in page view as they are superseded by the ‘to x’ text.
There haven’t been any changes in Dorico’s behaviour in this regard recently. The options on the Players page of Layout Options are the only ones provided, but there is in general no way to prevent Dorico from showing instrument change labels. If you don’t need to show instrument change labels, I wonder why you need an instrument change at all?
Regarding the grace note issue, this is unavoidable as things stand, I’m afraid, because the grace notes are actually at the rhythmic position of the start of the next bar, but only rhythmic notes are considered when determining the transition point to a new instrumnt, so Dorico doesn’t consider those grace notes: it has already decided to switch to the other instrument at the barline. You’ll need to employ a workaround of some kind, like inputting those grace notes as rhythmic notes in an unused voice at the end of the bar, scaled to grace note size via the Common panel in Properties.
Righto, thanks, I’ll use that trick for the grace notes.
RE: horns, I need the transposition labels at the start of the next phrase, and have used instrument changes so the playback sounds correct - perhaps there’s a better way to achieve this result? Can I perhaps pitch shift individual phrases in playback without moving them on the stave? This would also get round the current limitation of condensing (i.e. only the first instrument held by a player can be condensed). I’m tasked with recreating exactly what Wagner wrote and basically every phrase in all 8 horns is in a different transposition. Not how I would have done it but them’s the rules!
There’s no better way to achieve this result if you need the correct playback, which is of course not an unreasonable thing to need!
nice thread and thanks for all above. @dspreadbury just a note that the reason I am looking for this is just that I prefer a different text: e.g. flute going to alto flute, I prefer “take alto flute”
Obviously this is a small thing, but perhaps an easy option would be ‘custom prefix’ allowing ‘to’ or ‘take’ (or there might be others). For now, I am using the hide prefix, blank space custom text and then just adding my own text for ‘take alto flute’ etc…
also @dspreadbury when a new instrument starts I really prefer to have the full name in all caps in a box. Right now I’m hiding the “A Fl” and then just writing my own text. but maybe there is a built-in way to do this one?
There’s no way at present to make the instrument change boxed and the warning not, or to have the instrument name in caps at that point, but you’re not the first person to request that, Aaron, and it’s on our backlog for the future.
3 Likes
Reluctantly adding to the substantial backlog , if it hasn’t already been requested elsewhere: I would find it useful to have a third option for Staff Labels, in addition to Full Names and Short Names – a custom name that could be user-supplied in some way.
In writing for doubling Reed parts in a pit orchestra, the number of the part generally appears next to the name of the instrument (before or, as I prefer, after); but one doesn’t need that number in specifying a change of instrument – telling the playing to change “to Cl 3” is superfluous and even potentially confusing. So the setup might be:
Full name: Clarinet 3
Short name: Cl 3
Instrument-change name: Cl
[This could also solve the issue of wanting the instrument-change name in all caps, not that that’s any of my business.]
Of course it can be faked with text one way or another, and it may be that I’m the only one with this wish.
4 Likes
It has been requested before that it should be possible to omit the instrument number from instrument change numbers, and that is indeed already on our backlog (though not yet implemented).
1 Like
Hi @dspreadbury ,
unfortunately it seems there are still no news on this in Dorico 4? I would greatly appreciate the possibility to hide the change warnings, since a part as the one attached looks quite overloaded.
Thanks for considering!
1 Like
We didn’t make any changes in this area for Dorico 4, no. It remains on our backlog.