There are a few things with the Orchestral and Band score orders that I’ve always had to adjust for Jazz in almost every file. Of course the automatic reordering can be annoying too. As there’s an entry in doricolib files for instrumentScoreOrders, I thought I’d give editing the Score Order a try. It looks like it could be possible to create another new entry and to actually have a Jazz score order, and it will even appear as an option in Dorico, but then it doesn’t seem to actually work. Attached is a doricolib file that will replace the Band score order with my new Jazz order in Sort Players in Setup. Just add it to your user DefaultLibraryAdditions folder. (It will still be called Band.) Obviously if you need to use the Band order, don’t use this file, or if you need Band but not Orchestral you can edit the file to replace the Orchestral order instead.
EDIT: See revised file below
JazzInstrumentScoreOrderV4.zip (3.8 KB)
I would definitely welcome any feedback, or if there are any suggestions of things to change, as it’s still a bit of a work in progress. I ordered all 600+ instruments that Dorico currently has, and basically the order is as follows:
WW’s - Clarinets are currently wrong in Dorico, so I moved A under Bb. Moved Basset Horn to under Alto Cl. No strong opinions, but moved Didgeridoo and Dawus up under Recorders.
Brass - Trumpets above F Horns, like in Band scores
Vocals - typically above rhythm section, or at top as soloist, so placed here
Pitched Percussion - Vibes or Marimba are often part of the rhythm section
Guitars
Organs
Synths - Why 2 piano.electric entries in Orchestral order? I removed one.
Pianos
Bass - used Upright Bass and String Bass here, but left Contrabass with Stings
Drums
Unpitched Percussion
Harp
Strings - Why 2 strings.uprightbass entries and aliases? I removed one of each.
Generics - Moved generic Bass to be under generic Grand staff
For Unpitched Afro-Cuban Percussion, I moved them more or less to the order presented on pages 30-31 in the book The Essence of Afro-Cuban Percussion & Drum Set by Ed Uribe. It’s basically higher pitched to lower. I did change Bongos to go above Congas where he has the opposite. Bongos are higher pitched, and the Bongocero almost always is playing Bell as well which is right above. For Brazilian Percussion, I used Uribe’s Samba Percussion Score on page 89 of The Essence of Brazilian Percussion & Drum Set. Sometimes this had to be integrated with the order in the other book. (It seems like a lot of pretty common percussion instruments are missing too. No Bombo? Palitos? Batá Drums?) There were 2 entries for instrument.percussion.other.tambourine and instrument.orchestral.unpitched.triangle so I deleted one of each. For others, I either left as the Dorico Orchestral default, or used the Kurt Stone orders starting on page 205. For unpitched, it’s basically the Latin stuff I use, then Orchestral, then Marching. I left the Marching stuff untouched.
Questions:
- Timp. under low brass? Down before Harp after Unpitched Perc? It’s usually after a Tuba in an orchestral score, but this one I struggled with. I’ve seen it in a couple of different spots in jazz orchestra scores. It doesn’t really make sense to have it on its own after low brass and before Vocals, but it is often with the low brass. It also doesn’t really make sense for it to go with Pitched Percussion either, as this will typically be Vibes, Marimba, Glock, Xylophone, etc. This was the one fairly important instrument that I was a bit unsure of placement, so would definitely welcome opinions here.
- Harmonica, Bagpipes, Ondes-Martenot, Theramin above pitched percussion? I wasn’t really sure about these either, but it doesn’t really make sense to me to stick Harmonica with the Woodwinds as in the default.
- I moved Upright Bass and String Bass to the rhythm section, and left Contrabass with the Strings, but obviously that could be an issue too if they are all used interchangeably. At least this way there can be a jazz rhythm section bass and an orchestral bass both placed correctly in the same project.
- As mentioned above, there were a few duplicate entries in the original factory score orders. I’m not sure if those were errors or if they are required. If things get crash-y I guess I’ll add them back, but couldn’t really figure out why there should be 2 different entries for instrument.keyboard.piano.electric at different locations for example.
The Sort Players button seems kinda buggy too. Sometimes it responds, sometimes not. I’m not really sure about why it doesn’t seem to work consistently, but with the Orchestral score order selected you should get an ordering like this:
Clarinets are in the wrong order, Horns above Trumpets, Unpitched Percussion is basically alphabetical, Vocals under Percussion, and both Contrabass and Upright Bass at the bottom. After applying the “Band” score order (which has now been redefined to be Jazz with the doricolib file), you should get this:
Clarinets are correct, Horns below Trumpets, Bass above Drums, Unpitched Perc better organized (as far as I can tell, I can’t do anything about the bracketing), and other Strings at the bottom. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions?
