I have 5 percussion instruments assigned to percussion 1. At the very beginning of the score I want it to say “percussion 1.” Then when the first instrument plays, I’ll label it “tambourine.” Currently the first instrument that plays in perc 1 (Tambourine) is how the staff is named. That is ok for later in the score, but at the very beginning of the score I want it to say “percussion 1.” (Same for perc 2, perc 3, etc.) How to do this?
And, I’d love it if at the very beginning of the score it would automatically list all the instruments for that percussion player like this:
Percussion 1
Tambourine
Cymbals
Glockenspiel
That would be very useful for all players who double instruments, so the staff labels at the beginning of the score would look like this:
Piccolo
Piccolo
Flute 3
Thank you!
For percussion, the forthcoming update will include a lot more power and flexibility than you have at present, including the ability to add a percussion legend above the staff at any point. So you could have your staff labeled “Percussion 1” and then show the instruments on that staff in a list above, say, the first bar (which you can also drag to appear anywhere else as you wish), and if you then have e.g. a long gap before the cymbal plays again, you can add another legend that reminds the player which instrument is sounding at that point later on.
We do need to work on adding more flexibility to staff labelling in general and this is certainly in our plans.
Any projections on the date of the forthcoming update?
Eagerly awaiting!
It’s not imminent, I’m afraid. We are still in the middle of implementing these features (they’re big, of a similar order of magnitude to chord symbols, which took a while). The plan is still to have the update available this autumn.