I have a piece that includes a part that can be played either on violin or recorder. However, the range of that part is too wide for one recorder, so if it is being played by recorder, the recorder player should have two recorders–say, a tenor and a bass–and switch between them at appropriate times.
The difficulty is that music for tenor recorder is usually written in treble clef, and music for bass recorder is usually written in bass clef an octave below concert pitch.
Am I correct in believing that the right way to do this is to define a Player that holds both tenor and bass recorders and then switch between them–and then to define a Layout that overrides the instrument and clef with violin and treble clef? If so, how do I avoid change-of-instrument instructions in the violin layout?
You need two players. A violin and one holding 2 recorders. Each will have their own layout (so instrument changes will only appear in the Recorder layout)
You will need to ‘arrange’ the recorder part (copy the relevant violin passages to each recorder). Dorico will handle the transpositions and clef changes…
That strategy seems to imply that any time I edit the violin player’s music, I have to remember to propagate that edit to the recorder player(s). Is there no way to keep the two parts in sync with each other automatically?
How could there be? You will also be making decisions about which recorder will play a particular passage, since they will need time to change instrument.
Hi @arkoenig, a possible alternative method to make sure the two layouts are somehow synchronised, is to use cues in the recorder music (that cue to the violin). Setting cues size to 1 in Engrave mode, and setting some global cue Engraving options to show everything, hiding bar rests for cues in Notation Options, and some specific properties (like the Octave shift or Start text leaved empty to hide the cue labels), every time you edit the violin the music updates thanks to the cues. If you change the position of a passage adding notes before or after for example, you just need to adjust the range of the cue in the corresponding recorder staff (from Galley view):
