I have imported an XML score for recorder trio: Soprano Recorder, Tenor Recorder, Bass Recorder.
In Setup Mode I have edited the instrument names to be “Singular Full Name” first and “Singular Short Name” second):
Soprano and S.
Tenor and T.
Bass and B.
In my score they show up as:
Soprano and S. (as they should)
Tenor in C and C T. (not as they should)
Bass in C and C B. (not as they should)
How can I change this so that the score shows exactly what I am asking for and nothing more? If that’s not possible yet, can the capability be added to a future upgrade please?
If I want to label the first part “Frederick” and “Fred” instead of listing the instrument, I would like to be able to do so without Dorico circumventing what I have edited the Player names to be. Or if I want to list the instrument but not what key it is pitched in, I would like to be able to do so.
Or have I missed something? I edited all three player names the same way but I only got what I want for one of them.
Whatever actual instruments your tenor and bass recorders have ended up as, they are set (by Dorico) to always show their transposition, even if you would not otherwise want transposition to be shown. Instrument types in Dorico can have three settings for showing transposition: never show it (e.g. for instruments that are non-transposing and there are no transposing variants), show transposition according to the choices in Layout Options (e.g. for transposing instruments with commonly-used transpositions, such as Clarinets in B flat and Trumpets in B flat), and always show transposition, regardless of the choices in Layout Options (e.g. for transposing instruments for which there is a common transposition, and for which it would be necessary to know that this particular instrument uses a less common transposition, e.g. Clarinet in A, Trumpet in C, etc.). At the moment, you can’t edit this setting within an instrument type, though we do of course plan to make it possible to edit all instrument types in due course.
For the time being, your best bet would be to use the Change Instrument feature to swap your tenor and bass recorder instruments for different instrument types that don’t always force their transposition to be shown.
…And once you have swapped the recorders for a non-transposing instrument and changed the names, you can go the HALion player (or your preferred VST) and change the sound back to recorder there.
At least that’s the work-around I have found most expedient for now.
But inasmuch as recorders are transposing instruments, they only transpose by octaves. Players learn an F fingering (eg, alto, sopranino, bass) and a C fingering (eg soprano,descant), tenor) but sounding C is always written as a C.
True, only in the player’s mind could recorders be considered transposing instruments (with the exception of specially created transposed parts used perhaps in schools and created by teachers to allow players to “fake it”); recorders are always notated at concert pitch (or at the octave), so adding a transposition letter to their name is incorrect.
Thank you for the suggestion Daniel – I will be very happy when the instrument names that we actually want to show in the score will be possible. In the meantime the workaround will suffice even though it adds extra steps to my music engraving.
Interestingly the Soprano recorder, which is C and actually IS a transposing instrument (by octaves) doesn’t show the “in C” marking. Only the Tenor and Bass. The Tenor actually is NOT a transposing instrument, so showing its transposition makes no sense. Same for Alto recorder – it’s not a transposing instrument. Soprano and Bass recorders are transposing instruments. So there isn’t a clear application of the logic in this situation.
All of Dorico’s actual recorder instrument types are indeed set never to show their transposition by default, so I guess what’s happening is that Dorico is cooking up new instrument types during MusicXML import for some reason, which it does if the instrument as defined in the MusicXML file doesn’t match any existing definition exactly.