Music frames

Dorico
#1

Hi everyone!

I’m engraving the solo parts for a quintet I wrote. In some passages, the players play without any time signature and synchronises themselves to each other. To achieve this, I need that in these passages each player can see what the others are doing. I’m using the music frames tool, but I am unable to get what I want.

I unlinked some frames so I can filter the instruments I want (for most parts it is a solo instrument). However, it is impossible to to create a chain with frames with different layouts. That means each time there is a new layout frame, it’s starting from the beginning again. I’ve read in the forum that it is impossible to start a new layout frame from a specific rythmic position.

Is there another way to get this thing done?

(Hope everything is OK with my english, I’m a French Canadian).

#2

Welcome to the forum, francisb. I think you might end up having to create duplicate flows of the passages that you need to show in the other parts, e.g. by creating a new flow for just (say) the first violin and copying the chunk of music that needs to be seen by the second violin player into that flow, then using that flow in your layout-specific music frames in the second violin part, if you see what I mean.

#3

I’m thinking about how I would do this.

Would it work for you to create a series of extra players (with no layouts of their own) these would become effectively cue staves for each instrument. Then add one staff to each layout. So Violin 1 would have an extra cue staff specifically for Violin 1, Violin 2 would have an extra cue staff for Violin 2 etc. All of these extra staves would get added to the layouts of their respective instruments, so two staves per layout. I believe you can set each layout to hide empty staves but exclude the main staff from hiding. Then you can use the Cue function in Dorico in the extra staff only where you need them and you could cue any part you need to in those cue staves. I believe this create a situation where those cues would show up as an extra staff when you need them but that extra staff would go away when you don’t need them.
If you do it this way you shouldn’t need to mess with all those extra music frames.

Unless I’m misunderstanding what you are trying to do… or if I’m misunderstanding Dorico’s handling of all the things I mention above.

#4

On the assumption that you want all the players to see the SAME sections as tutti, and that casting off of bars can be the same in the score as in the parts in these sections, how about this?

  1. Add a second quintet of players in Setup mode - I’ll now refer to these as Quintet 2.
  2. Group them (left panel of Setup mode) - this way they won’t be automatically numbered.
  3. Add all Quintet 2 players to each of your existing part layouts. Set Layout Options for your part layouts so that all staves are hidden throughout.
  4. Create a score layout that contains all players but hides all empty staves.
  5. In the score, in Galley View, select, cut and paste each section of music that needs to appear in the parts, from Quintet 1 Staves to Quintet 2 staves.
  6. Add System Breaks as necessary in parts and score.
  7. Rename part layouts by double-clicking and typing in the right panel of Setup mode.
#5

Thanks for all these solutions!

What I did is : I created new flows in which I copied and isolated the passages i mentioned before. In the configuration mode, I chose that these flows don’t appear in the conductor. Then, for each solo part, I chose that the original flows (without the isolated passages in different flows, don’t appear). For each solo part, I activated all the instrumentists. Then I used the filters and the layout frames to chose wether only the solo instrument appears or every one. It is now possible since I can use the flow filter to isolate the passages I need.

This leads me to the following question : Why when we’re using only the master layout, the instruments filter is automatically blocked? If it wasn’t blocked, it would be very easy to achieve this kind of stuff.

#6

If you’re using the Master Frame Chain, you’re giving Dorico the right to reflow the music between multiple Music Frames in the chain. The only way it can do that is by keeping the settings for each frame consistent.

Your suggestion would be unworkable. For example, if you’ve got bars 1-8 on page one, in one Master Frame, and bars 9-16 on page two, in another Master Frame, and then you decide that on page 1 only you want to remove a player. You untick the player from the frame on page one. Dorico then goes “ah, I can squeeze four more bars onto page one”, but when it does that, does it then need to include the player you’d removed for bars 9-12, or not? Does it then need to add that player back in on page 2? What happens if you delete bar 9 and thus bar 8 squeezes onto the first page?

#7

Maybe at every instrumental changes it could automatically make a frame break?
Or could we do a chain with Layout Frames that have different configurations (with frame break again)?