Hello,
I need to divide the parts in the screenshot attached. They actually cross: in the firts 2 bars I made it clear, but then the bottom line goes on top in the following 2 bars: it means that the violins playing the bottom line will play the top line in the second two bars. The lines cross. How can I display thay? I think I need to actually split the staff into 2, but how?
What version of Dorico do you have? If you have Dorico Pro, you can use the divisi feature:
Likewise, it’s worth being aware of Dorico Pro’s condensing feature too:
Alternatively, make sure voices for the 2nd part stay in the down-stem voice for as long as the stave is split into 2 voices. By which I mean, put the top line in the 3rd bar of your screenshot (where the moving notes are higher than the held note) in the down-stem voice, and the held note in the up-stem voice.
It’s also typical (at least in my experience) to indicate divisi using lower-case text, and just “div.” generally suffices.
Following another thread I created a new player (screenshot attached). But now I need to remove that player for the whole piece, except those 4 bars, how can I do that?
I’m now assuming you have Dorico Elements? See here:
I have Dorico 5 Elements, not the Pro version. I need to actually remove the player, and as you said, split the staff into two staves only for those 4 bars, how can I do that? It’s for the actual score (for the director).
Divisi (with stave splitting) isn’t available in Elements. Having an extra player and hiding empty staves is an option available to you in Elements.
Alternatively, you could try using a single player (a player whose type is “single”, and can therefore hold multiple instruments) who holds a violin instrument and a grand staff instrument (like a piano), and input these 4 bars on the piano staff: this will prompt Dorico to do an instrument change from the 1-staff violin to the 2-staff piano, for those bars.
When you say: “hiding empty bars” you mean I won’t see the staff except for those 4 bars? If so, then it’s ok.
I don’t want to have too many staves.
For the second option I would have to import a brand new violin player and again the midi?
PS. I tried to hide bars in the layout option, but nothing happened.
Yes: this option means staves that only contain empty bars for a whole system don’t appear. Try it out, maybe, and see what happens!
No, not at all: if the violin is already being held by a section player, simply add a new single player, don’t give them an instrument (press Esc to close the instrument picker), then drag your existing violin to the empty-handed single player. All their music will be retained.
You can then add a new piano instrument to the player, and see all 3 staves in galley view.
Please share the project so I or someone else can see how you’ve set it up. We’re not psychic, I’m afraid, and can’t reliably determine issues from descriptions alone!
Common issues in Layout Options include: not selecting the right layout in the list on the right; not selecting the right option (you want to set this to either After first system or All systems); not clicking Apply. For this option, double-check the player isn’t activated for “excluded from hide empty staves”.
How can I insert a single player that holds two type of staff? And how can I determine when to show one staff and when two?
If you’re relatively new to Dorico and are still working out how everything works, I would recommend working through the First Steps guide: it covers a lot of key functionality with step-by-step instructions. (Admittedly not instrument changes.)
I finally managed to do it but for 2 pages I see also loads of empty bars. Fortunately only for two pages and not for the whole piece. Can I hide those bars? I tried with the Layout and hid bars, but didn’t work. Also the name shouldn’t be different, now it’s “Violini Primi 1 and 2”.
Hide empty staves works on whole systems. If a part has at least one note in a system, then its stave will appear for the whole system.
Unless you change the casting off such that the system break occurs right before the divisi, then the method of having 2 players and hiding empty staves will result in empty bars shown before/after those bars.
Dorico automatically numbers identical instruments – see here: Instrument numbering
Arguably, it’s helpful to know that the first violins are divisi here. If you don’t want this, you can prevent numbering by putting the top violin player into its own player group, or edit their names so they’re different (ie not the same).
