one-staff keyboard?

Is this possible?

If you do not need the initial brace, you could add a single staff instrument and then change its name in Setup and sound in Play.
IIRC being able to reduce a two-staff instrument (like Celesta) to one staff is envisioned for the future.

You could also tick ‘Allow individual staves of multi-staff instruments to be hidden’ on the Vertical Spacing page of Layout Options and just leave one staff of your piano empty.

Ah, that’s where it is. I thought I’d heard of another option and looked for it but unsuccessfully. Yes, that is the better option.

I sort of have the opposite problem. I have a score on which Synth. alternates with Celesta and Harpsichord. Both of the latter were created (in Setup and Write) with no brace (and the barlines unconnected), and only a single staff appearing in Engrave mode if only one hand was playing. I can correct this on first appearance in Engrave, but that doesn’t seem like the most efficient situation – and why were they created that way in the first place? Is there an option I’ve missed?

I’m sorry, @Rinaldo, I’m not completely clear what you’re requesting here. You want Dorico to hide the brace altogether when only one staff is shown, but show it when both staves are shown? There’s an option for that on the Brackets and Braces page of Layout Options. But I imagine I’m misunderstanding your requirement here.

I apologize for being unclear, Daniel. I want both celesta and harpsichord to be two-staff instruments with a brace at all times, just as we’re accustomed to seeing them, but Dorico didn’t create them that way when I added them as doubles for the Synthesizer.

Just now, when I tried to create a new small project to illustrate what I mean, both instruments were created perfectly (with brace) as I wanted them. So I’m willing to suppose that I somehow messed up the brace myself, and I’ll just correct what I have in the real score. Sorry to have bothered you all.

Might it be that in Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Staff Visibility you have the option ticked to hide individual staves of multi-staff instruments? If so, untick it. If you want to override individual instruments you can work around it by adding a Frame Break or System Break at the first downbeat, then double-clicking the Break’s purple signpost, then setting all the (b) staves to Hidden.

I did! And I’ve never looked at that screen before (to my knowledge), so I don’t know how it got ticked. But anyway… that’s the answer, and thank you.