I just noticed this today. When you set your Ideal Gaps in the Layout Options, those values will obviously only be absolute if the score is not being force justified to the bottom of the Music Frame. (Layout Options>Vertical Spacing>Vertical Justification>Justify distance between staves and systems when frame is at least: xx%) Ok… that’s fine, that makes sense. But when you do have it set to justify to the bottom of the page, the justification nicely spreads everything out proportionally, so the Ideal Gap settings essentially become relative to each other. That makes sense, and it works well. Except, the Braced staff to Braced staff Ideal Gap. That gap will remain absolute when the staves expand to the bottom of the page with the justification while everything else expands proportionally.
I guess my question is… why? Is this expected behavior or a bug? And if it’s expected, what’s the rationale? To my eye, it just doesn’t look right. What it means is that unless I get all of the Ideal Gaps large enough to where the justification has little to no effect while still being proportional the way that I want them, this behavior ends up making the braced staff to braced staff gap much smaller than desired when the justification expands everything else proportionally.
Hi @loff56, I think this (expected) behaviour, is because the Braced Staff to Braced Staff generally represents one instrument, with the defined Number of staves: 2 and Span of bracket: 2:
and to maintain a certain unity between for example the Upper and Lower staff of a Piano, Dorico treats the spacing differently that for example Violin 1 and Violin 2 (that are generally bracketed). Also bear in mind that the Ideal gaps are in reality Minimum Gaps, and they will adjust accordingly if the music between the two staves needs some more place (as for example the dynamics, that are notated between the Upper and Lower staff of a Piano).
If you want visually more space anyway, you can adjust the ideal gaps for Braced Staff to Braced Staff to be slightly bigger (that’s why there is a separate setting for it, I imagine).
If you create a brace between staves of different Players/Instruments afterwards in Engrave mode, Dorico will (I think intelligently) not treat them as a single instrument (even if they will adjust proportionally, if you change the Braced Staff to Braced Staff Ideal Gaps):
If you could post an example of a situation where the spacing doesn’t look as you desire, I am sure someone can tell more about why and how this happens.
Hmmm… Well, you’re right that if you were to replace a Bracket on two different players with a Brace, they do behave differently as it relates to whether or not the gaps stretch when the staves are force justified to the bottom. They still get affected by the brace to brace Ideal Gap value, but unlike a Piano or a Harp which will maintain that absolute gap under justification, the other instruments will stretch.
I mean… I get it, I guess. The whole single instrument thing kind of makes sense. But it also doesn’t insofar as it’s not opaque as to what’s going on under the hood. They’re all “Ideal Gaps” or “Minimum Gaps”, perhaps more accurately, but the nature of what causes them to be larger than minimum is different. The gap between the Grand Staff will only ever increase above the minimum if there’s too much material between the staves, everywhere else the gap will increase for that reason OR if the score system gets justified to the bottom of the page. Maybe the thought was that this behavior prevents the two staves of the grand staff from getting too far away from each other in situations where the justification causes really wide gaps elsewhere? Hmmm. I don’t know… maybe I’m not convinced this is worth it. You also end up with situations like your video capture there: look how close the Piano and Synth staves are relative to everything else. I’m sure that system is justified, but… I don’t know… that just looks weird to me with how close the grand staff staves are relative to everything else.
Anyway, I guess it’s a good lesson at least. Maybe I need to set everything up so that the Ideal Gaps produce a system that’s already close to justified so that I can better control the relative nature of those gaps.
These differences in spacing between “single instruments with 2 braced staves” and other kind of staves with vertical justification occurring, is more evident in an empty score.
Generally I would think about this Layout Options changes/settings only when the whole music material is being written (notes, tempo, dynamics, techniques, rehearsal marks, text, etc…): most probably the spacing will adjust itself automatically in a balanced way.
Generally, the two staves of a piano part stay as close together as possible. If they are far apart, it’s much more difficult to play from.
No, I wouldn’t recommend that. Can you show us a page that you’re having trouble with?
Normally, it’s entirely expected that things will be different distances apart. A page of entirely equally spaced staves looks … .mechanical.
