It’s not uncommon to see a staff label applied to the first system only in a full score which indicates which instrument has an ossia for another instrument. It does not influence the full label nor abbreviation. For example, flute or solo violin 1; oboe 2 or clarinet 2. I know Dorico doesn’t yet support per-system staff labels or overrides, but I’m wondering what the current state of the art is when it comes to just the initial staff label override. Is there a better option than a text frame override on a page? Hoping to avoid this if possible.
You could maybe take advantage of the layout option that lets you show the player name (instead of the instrument name) for the first system? It offers some flexibility when you need different staff labels in different layouts for the same player.
A good idea, but you can’t apply formatting in that case. For example, you can’t center a player name which contains a line break.
Anyone have any other ideas? Or is the only option in 2026 still a text frame override?
Thank you, yes, that would have worked had I done a better job of looking through the score and noticed that the staff labels sometimes even vary by movement. The only minor annoyance with using the instrument name is you’ve then got to go to every movement’s first system and override the staff label to select player name, which is usually minor.
So given that I need some modifications for the same instrument on a movement-by-movement basis, only current option in Dorico is a text frame override, correct?
Normally, the first systems of every flow are considered as first systems, so the layout options should be applied everywhere, I believe…?
So, you mean that you actually need more than two different full staff labels for one player? If so, it becomes complex! It’s maybe possible with instrument changes, but it really depends on what you exactly want.
At some point, for this kind of purpose, I think some users like to create different players with different names — then it’s quite easy to organize in setup mode, and staff labels can be different for each flow.
Yes, based on the original score, I need to vary the full staff label for a given instrument depending on movement. Making multiple players with different names for the purpose of working around Dorico’s staff labeling limitations probably isn’t something I want to do so it sounds like, unless there are other workarounds, a couple of text frames is what must happen.