Now that I have a large project quite near completion, I have been working on editing small details such as sub-brackets. So I started from the bottom of my score and worked on the strings, to make sure that I had appropriate sub-brackets for all my divisi. So far so good.
But then in looking at other parts of the score, I saw that some of the major brackets for instrumental choirs had been altered, so that, for example, the bassoons were no longer bracketed with the other winds. So I went in and fixed this, but then noticed that the sub-bracket for the bassoons was now gone. I could insert a new one in most cases, although not in the case of a condensed line that consisted of nothing but rests for an entire page. But the point is that I did not ask for this and a Dorico glitch of some sort is make more work for me.
Here is a screen-shot that shows the top flute line being divorced from the bracket – again, I did not ask for this, and before I started editing brackets, the main bracket for the winds encompassed all of them:
Before doing manual bracketing, I’d recommend checking the options in Layout Options > Brackets and Braces.
Then, if you really do need to do manual bracketing, start from the beginning of the flow and work left-to-write. Bracket/barline changes apply from their position onwards, so working left-to-right reduces the work required and allows you to follow the bracket/barline change through the flow.
They’re quite literal, so if the numbers of staves are changing a lot, you might well find the wrong staves are bracketed or not bracketed. You might also find that actually a preceding bracket/barline change is causing the trouble and deleting that or resetting back to the defaults fixes some of the issues.
I think there might also be some complications with condensed staves, although I can’t remember the specifics.
In my (limited) experience, if the default bracketing isn’t quite right, the best way to change it is once at the beginning of the flow, with all staves showing on the first page. Then that should apply correctly to the rest of the pages unless you have some sort of ensemble change mid-movement.
Thank you for everything, Lillie.
Yes, this bracket things is tricky, but I got most of them fixed. Oddly, some sub-brackets that had been in place disappeared on some pages and not on others. This was mostly in the bassoons, which are condensed throughout almost all of this project. Since if there is no music in the very first measure on the page of a condensed staff, there is no rhythmic position that can be activated to allow for the insertion of the bracket. I got around that by inputting a dummy note in Galley view, added the sub-bracket, then erased the dummy note.
Is Dorico updating this? It feels like a bug, frankly. There has to be some algorithm that adjusts accordingly with the vertical spacing options. I got about halfway through the score, adding these brackets, when I realized I forgot to implement the vertical spacing options which completely changed the whole thing! Its been quite laborious really.
