I have a piece with 4 percussionists, each playing a group of instruments. In some cases I have grouped instruments into kits (wood blocks for instance). I would like for the staff label to include “Percussion 4” above the wood block labels. Is this possible? Or do I need to make the woodblocks separate instruments (no kit).
Unfortunately you can’t at the moment use the player name as a staff label, which might be the natural way to handle this for a multi-instrument percussion part, but depending on how you have your kit set up, you may be able to get the name you want to appear by setting one or more appropriate group names on the Grid page of Edit Percussion Kit or with the Edit Names button on the five-line staff page of the same dialog.
I really hope the team behind (terrific) Dorico come up with a solution for this.
In an orchestral score, if the player called ‘Percussion 2’ is playing glockenspiel, marimba and bass drum, then presently Dorico labels their staff with the name of the first instrument played.
…Better to show ‘Percussion 2’ before the stave on the full score (and at the top left of the part), and then have the first played instrument name appearing after the percussionist’s clef.
You could probably achieve this in Dorico 4 by using the new option to show player names in staff labels, rather than instrument names, and showing instrument change labels at the start of the flow.
In 3.5, you can already control what appears on the top left of the part by renaming the layout (the token on the top left of p1 in parts refers to the layout name).
Very helpful. Thanks again Lillie.
I am very much enjoying all the improvements in Dorico 4. I really love what the team has done.
In a new work, I am using the new option ‘show player names in staff labels’ for 2 percussion players. When I set staff labels on subsequent systems ‘abbreviated’, the player name only appears on the first page. Starting the second page, the (abbreviated) instruments are shown.
Is there a way to solve this?
Welcome to the forum Guy – how did you rename the players? Did you set short/abbreviated names for them?
Wow Lillie, that was fast and you nailed it again!
I had to right click the players in Setup mode indeed and set an abbreviated name for them.
Many thanks!
Is it somehow possible to show both the instrument/kit name AND the individual names? I would like to have written in the lowest staff “Strings” and then the String Numbers.
No, there’s no (automated) way to do this at present.
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I’m very curious, how did you achieve the smaller, italicized text beneath the “bring out” label? Is that just a text blurb you dragged under it and aligned, or is that a label feature I’ve never seen before??
