I am working on a collection of 24 18th century dances (in a project of 24 “Parties”), composed in a time when natural horns were in use. Most of the dances differ in the Key and the writer obviously expected the Hornist to select for each dance the Horn in its key. So I have to change for nearly every Dance which kind of Key the horn should be.
I know how I can activate and inactivate instruments for different “parties” in Dorico. But when ever I change the Instrument (even when I have only selected this certain “partie” in the setup section) the change always affect all 24 “parties”. I have already checked that the layout options allowed instrument change, but still I dont know what I can do to select the right Type of Horn only for a certain section, without changing it for all others.
Thank you for every helping hint.
Each player can hold as many instruments as you like. Rather than changing instrument, create a new instrument assigned to the same player. You should see that in Galley View each of the different instruments has its own staff, so you can easily start writing into the correct instrument (even if subsequent writing is in Page View). You should also see that in Page View only the relevant instrument is shown at any particular time.
I guess you’ll probably want to set Layout Options to show Staff Labels at the start of each Flow, though probably not subsequently.
But how can I prevent than to get all kind of different Horns in each Partie shown with their own system in the score. Since as far as I can see, there is only a checkbox to activate or inactivate a certain “player” per “Partie” but I can’t see any one to decide which of his Instruments should be viewable in the Score of a certain “partie” and which should not.
If they’re all held by the same player, and instrument changes are allowed in Layout Options > Players, there shouldn’t be multiple staves showing at any point.
Natural horn parts in this kind of music are quite homophonic, and will pretty much always be notated on 1 staff in the score. This is normally something you’d achieve by Condensing.
Unfortunately, Dorico can, as yet, only condense the first instrument held by each player.
One solution is to create as many (pairs of) horn players as there are keys in your source, and assign the right ones to each dance accordingly. The horns probably don’t change crooks during one dance.
Combine all first and all second horns in each of the 2 horn parts (layouts).
I am sorry to say, but if I add for the hornist another Horn in another Key, than I get in all parties an additional system for it and do not know how this could be inactivated for those parties where the other horns are not in use.
Perhaps I am still expecting that an instrument change would be as easy as it was in Sibelius where you can change it even from one bar to another in a certain staff.
Is something as often in many orchestral scores like this really still not possible in Dorico ?
Yes, instrument changes are definitely possible, but as I said, it’s currently still a limitation in Dorico that Condensing won’t work for any extra instrument. The method that I describe is a workaround.
Edit to add:
In case you do use several instruments in each player (so, not many separate players), make sure you allow instrument changes in Layout Options > Players (I don’t know the German terms).
The whole collection of horn crooks will inevitably show in Galley View, but the printed score (Page View) will show only the current one.
If I understood right , than there seem to be no function for a simple instrument change on the same staff. So the only thing possible are tedious workarounds to produce something which finally at least looks similar.
An instrument change is actually quite simple: in Galley View, where you see all instruments held by a player on separate staves, just start entering notes in the right instrument. The instrument change will be handled by Dorico automatically.
OK if I see it right, than this happens when I change from writing mode to the layout mode.
But is there any option to already hide in the wrting mode all staffs not in use. than other wise my two horn player will make my score with also all possible horn-keys not in use presented in additional staffs in writing mode pretty clumsy to handle.
The first time I had to actually deal with instrument changes in Dorico, it was literally too simple for me to understand. 
So:
- Create a horn player.
- Assign to this one player all the various horns that you’ll need in all of those dances.
- In galley mode, you’ll see all the horns in order to input music into the one you need for a given dance.
3a. If there are too many staves of horns visible, use the filtering capabilities of galley view to only show the one you’re inputting! - In page mode, you’ll see only the horn instrument that contains the music.
I assume that there’s only one type of horn playing in any given dance, right?
This means you don’t have to worry about instrument changes, since that is only for changing instruments during a flow/Partie.
Also, condensing is not applicable here.
Leo pointed out that you’ll likely want staff labels at the beginning of each dance, so the hornist knows which one to pick up.
Cheers,
Benji
Having so many staves surely is not very practical. If you’d create separate players for each key, you can just assign them to the flows (Partien) where they’re needed. And you get to condense them.
My guess is that you don’t need instrument changes during a dance. In a symphony, that could be more complicated.
Peter, you’re right, but this might depend on the number of instruments. If those 24 dances encompass 12 major and 12 minor key signatures, then yes, 24 horn staves in galley mode are a bit unwieldy…
4-5 different horns should be manageable, I think. Plus, there are fabulous options with filtering for instruments!
Additionally, one could enter a single note into the correct horn type, and then continue in page mode…
B.
Yes you got it.
I fear for the writing mode it currently remains unhandy. The current Kind of organise different instruments for the same player would be perhaps at least a bit easier for the writing mode, if there would be an option to hide unused staffs for alternative instruments of a certain player… (At least for me, since indeed the hornist does not change his horn inside a certain dance, but just from one to another.)
If I understand your question correctly, this might help you:
As you see I have 12 horn players, each pair with their own transposition.
In the image you see that flow 4 has 2 horns in D.
If we have a look at the right side where the layouts reside –
– you see that I have four horn parts, and the Corno III has E, D, and C (highlighted).
This is due to the limitation of not being able to condense more than the first instrument every player is holding.
OK, that “works” to hide the unused staffs.
Thank you for that substancial hint.
However the Instrument-change in Sibelius seemed to me still “a bit” more intuitive.
Thank you for your answer, I already understood, that this might be one wy to come to a similar result. But it seem to me still a somehow cumbersome workaround.
However it is at least one possible way. Thank your for its nice presentation.
It was a somewhat cumbersome problem to solve to begin with. 
Pity the poor horn players who who find themselves surrounded by crooks.