Hello, I’m transitioning from Sibelius to Dorico and have a few questions I’m scratching my head over.
1.) I don’t like how trombones 1 and 2 have different beaming but the same rhythm. How can I remove the beaming over the rest in trombone 2? I tried to check in the layout options but it seems inconsistently applied. Trombone 1 and 3 are fine and trombone 2 always has the hanging rest.
2.) I have it set up for two trumpets (so trumpet 1 and trumpet 2 individual parts now) but in the condensed staff it says a3 though there is no trumpet 3 and I deleted the original trumpet 1 and 2 xml staff. Any ideas what the issue is? I also prefer player 2 to have opposite stems like the horns are doing so it doesn’t need to say a2 each time like it is doing here.
3.) It is showing all the text on combined staff shows staff text way too much. How to get it to show up once on the combined staff rather than for each instrument and clutter the full score? This for example, “sonorous” is reprinted in the full score for each instrument but it should show up just once for each of the combined staves but show up for each part too.
Hi @kazzy, and welcome to the Forum and to Dorico!
For 3), the text should condense (amalgamate) as well, with such rhythm. But the separation of the stems suggests that in that phrase there are some differences in the voices that suggest Dorico to not amalgamate the text.
Two methods to force the amalgamation of text:
a) insert the sonorous as suffix to the f dynamics.
or
b) (this works also if you have for example only text) insert a Condensing Change on the second beat of that bar. (Create it at the previous barline and then move it in Write mode with the moving shortcuts). Just check the horns on the left panel of the Condensing Change dialogue. This will force a recalculation of the condensing.
I make now a short video to explain: see again in 5 minutes…
Edit: here the video:
If this doesn’t help, please upload your Dorico file.
…if the condensed material is all in a single condensed voice then only a single copy of the text item will appear, but if the condensed material is in multiple voices then you’ll get text items in each voice.
Thanks so much! Especially thought the video was very helpful as I didn’t know you could split views like that. You answered questions I didn’t know I had. The help from both of you is very, very helpful. Now looking better:
Hi @kazzy, you still have redundant staff labels, probably caused by you having renamed the instruments manually. Dorico puts automatically the instrument numbers, when the same instrument appears more than one time in a setup. To restore the automatically renumbering you can do Reset Instrument Names, from Setup menu:
Oh wow, was wondering that. I’ll try that tomorrow. Yes, I manually changed the instrument names to include stuff like the player’s number. Thanks again!
Christian, what is the best way to add new instruments? It seems since I imported this file from Sibelius as XML that I need to explode more of my parts to individual instruments but I seem to be doing it the wrong way as the results are quite inconsistent. For the flutes, I just added a section player as a flute and exploded the part. I didn’t change it’s numbering so thought it would auto condense as Flute 1, 2 as needed when I selected “Reset Instrument Names” from the setup menu but it did not. Meanwhile, Horns and trumpets look good but trombones don’t have instrument numbers. I fear I might have add instruments the wrong way without understanding the difference between an instrument and a player in Dorico speak.
This works the same way in Dorico that it does in the real world: players hold instruments. A player might hold just one instrument (a violin, for example), or maybe more than one (a Bb and an A clarinet).
Dorico also distinguishes between section players (a player representing the first violin section, for example) and single players (the first flute).
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. So if I need to add two flutes, are they players with flutes or ensemble of flutes or instrument of flutes? I understand they can be synonymous but unsure which is going to set up a full score to show Flute 1, 2 as a single staff in the full score but also have individual parts. I’m trying my best to learn and follow but it’s a big shift in how to approach the score and I appreciate how helpful and supportive everyone is being.
It is better and logical to have flutes being hold by a Single Player (one flute for one Player). If your flute/s are now hold by section players (and you have your music already written) you need to create new empty-handed single players, and drag the flute instrument/s into this player (and then delete the remaining empty handed section player/s: the already written music will be maintained.
Here a video showing the procedure:
I suggest you read the Dorico Concepts in the Manual. There there is a chapter that explains some of those things:
Also very useful is this video series Setup Mode in Dorico | How to (with 7 videos). The user interface look slightly different, but the concepts remain the same:
They would be two single players, each one holding a flute instrument.
In the score, in galley view, you would enter each player’s music on its own staff. In page view, if you activate condensing for the score layout, Dorico will combine the two flute parts into a single staff. Each player also gets by default their own part layout, showing only their music.
Also bear in mind that Layouts are made up of one or more Players, so if you want separate Parts for Flute 1 and Flute 2, they need to be different Players.
Thanks for all the super helpful input from everyone. It’s been very helpful! I hope I haven’t exhausted my quota for questions.
In the full score, notice bassoon (the fourth staff from the top) how on page 1, the system line goes through all the winds. But on page 2 and after it stops at clarinet. Any ideas what I’m doing wrong? (Ignore that Clarinets are still on a combined staff, I haven’t fixed oboes and clarinets yet).
Also, one thing I’m not figuring out, how do I playback on only specific instruments? I know I can mute it but when you’re hunting for a wrong note/poor voice leading, would be easier to just select on the phrase or staff you want isolated on playback but I am getting tutti regardless of what is selected.
