When I write for concert band or orchestra, I divide the percussion part among the percussionists, indicating what each player should play. Dorico does an excellent job of showing when each percussionist needs to change instruments and which instrument they are playing at any given time. However, in the full score, the conductor sometimes cannot see what each percussionist is playing on every page, because the instrument is not indicated on each page, as shown in the attached screenshot.
It would be ideal to have an option that displays something like “Perc. 1 – Sn. Dr.” at the beginning of each system, depending on which instrument the player is using. Is there any way to display this information?
Hi @MBM37, there are many different possibilities to setup percussion instruments, and depending on how the setup is made, there are different ways to show th instruments or staff labels.
If you could upload a Dorico file with just the setup (no music required, just the players with the assigned instruments) we can give precise advice based on context.
You could use Percussion Legends (for 5-lines and grid visualisations of perc. kits), or customised payer or instruments names…
Hello, thank you for your reply, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I decided it would be better to finish the project in a different way first and, now that it has been submitted, look into how to achieve what I originally intended.
I’m attaching a percussion-only file as an example. At the moment, I usually work like this: I assign different instruments to each percussionist and label them “Percussionist I,” “Percussionist II,” etc. This works very well in the individual parts, but in the full score, if a percussionist is playing the same instrument for a long stretch, the conductor may lose track of which instrument they are playing when it appears again several pages later.
That’s why I’d like the instrument currently assigned to each percussionist to be shown on every page of the full score. I’m sure there’s a simple way to do this, but I haven’t been able to find it.
That´s a good idea, thank you very much. But I was wondering whether it might be possible to achieve what would be the ideal solution for my workflow. Thank you!
Yes, I tried that and it’s a good idea, but it’s not exactly what I’m looking for (although I can use it if I can’t find another solution). What I’d like is for the performer’s name to always appear as the staff label, while at the beginning of each system the conductor is reminded which instrument that performer is playing at that point, without having to go back through the score to check.
From the conductor’s perspective – today I spent two hours to write the current instrument of six concert band scores on every system which just says Percussion I, II and III, I really hate this – if you don’t hide percussion staves temporarily the ordinal number of the percussionist is irrelevant (aka pointless) in practice.
Yes, thank you, I’m aware of that, but my goal isn’t only to make things easier for the conductor. It would also be useful for me when I attend rehearsals, for example, to mark corrections, or while composing, to quickly see whether there are any overlaps or conflicts in the way the percussion is organized.
I realize this is a rather particular and perhaps overly fussy requirement, which is why I told Jesele that their solution would work for me if necessary, but I’d really love to find a way to achieve this. Thank you!
Thank you very much!