The first is MTF-Cadence
The second is MTF-Beethoven
And the third is Bravura in order to better compare
The second is MTF-Beethoven
And the third is Bravura in order to better compare
MTF-Cadence looks best to me of those three with that very large size. Beethoven looks nicer when it is smaller but with that super large size it looks a little strange.
I’m puzzled why anybody would want to scale up a non-functional bit of decoration way beyond its “traditional” size. If you must have something to group the staves together, use a bracket, which can grow to any size without either looking silly or occupying lots of horizontal space.
The only reason for a brace even in 2-stave piano parts is tradition. It doesn’t convey any useful information.
The large ones were just an experiment to see whether and how these braces deform as they become larger. With rare exceptions, they would encompass at most 4 staves for piano music. The MTF-Cadence and MTF-Beethoven don’t deform at all, and I think that is a better approach than the Bravura.
E. Gould: “The curly bracket, also called a brace, connects the staves of instruments that use two staves.” In modern usage, straight brackets link combinations of different instruments. This can be very useful visual information in reading chamber and orchestral music.
Gould says “two staves,” not seven. And a solo part is not a score.
Three staves is not uncommon in modern piano music, four does happen but not as often (I’ve even seen five stave piano systems, but I reckon that could be edited better!). Seven is perhaps a bit extreme 
It seems there isn’t much of a solution without changing font. Does anyone from the Dorico team reckon this could be improved - either through an improved symbol or a little bit more control over the symbol itself (or both)?
I realise this will be very low on the priorities of course!
If Daniel chims in he will surely have a better solution than what I will suggest but in the meantime here you go.
There is a solution within Dorico itself.
The attached picture shows what you can get if you do the following:
Go to
- Engrave / Music Symbols
- In the left panel choose Flat Brace
- Delete the Brace in the edit window
- In the right panel let Bravura selected as Font and choose “Staff Brackets and dividers” in the “Range” dropdown menu
- Select the first Glyph (it is a left brace) and click “Add Glyph”
- Click OK
Now you have an alternative “Bravura Brace” to the default “Flat Brace” of Bravura 
In fact Bravura offers more Braces than the two ones presented under “Staff Brackets and dividers”.
I have no clue why there are not there and why there are not under a title like “Braces”
There are four braces in Bravura, and only in the most extreme circumstances will you get the flat one. For a three- or even four-staff piano, you’ll get a curly brace, but a curly one that has been carefully designed to look appropriate between a range of particular sizes. I can understand that having a completely flat brace, which is intended only for the most extreme scenarios, is not to everybody’s taste, but I also question how often you will see that in realistic situations (I would argue that the answer to that is “never”).
Thank you for coming into the conversation Daniel. I just have to be honest and disagree that this “never” occurs in “realistic scenarios”.
This has happened in every project involving a piano which I’ve started since getting Dorico. It doesn’t take much: 3 staves in a brace; a big range on each stave; multiple voices. That’s before I add dynamics. Naturally this is largely to do with the style of the music I’m inputting. Presumably, also there are fine controls I can explore further regarding the VJ of the systems and pages. But it does happen…
I didn’t start this thread because I’m randomly trying to find things I take issue with (!), but rather to see if there’s a way to adjust it at all.
Thank you all for your input so far. Clearly this is largely down to taste, though I noticed this exact query came up on the FB group the other day too - so it’s not just me.
Seemingly there’s a work around provided by @teacue (thank you), though graphically there’s more manipulation needed there. Again, though, that’s a matter of taste and individual judgement.
But that’s the case with so much in engraving and is what makes it an art form rather than just a graphical process one goes through blindly.
Never let it be said that we don’t take this kind of feedback seriously. I have spent most of the day today adding some extra Engraving Options that will, assuming they pass muster from our QA team, appear in a future update allowing you to specify the span at which Dorico switches from using one brace to another, and allowing you to prevent it from using the flat brace at all if you prefer.
In case I don’t say it enough: Daniel, you’re a gem (and so’s everyone else in the office; I’m sure!).
Blimey, Daniel! I’m speechless. Thank you for this! You and your colleagues truly are remarkably open-minded - thank you again!