Showing a staff only in one flow

In making a cello part of a cantata and I’d like to show the vocal line just for the recitative movement (separate flow) but I can’t figure out how to do it. I tried making a custom score layout but I can’t choose the flows selectively to select or deselect the player (voice) for that flow.

You can’t, at least not without doing serious fiddling with the frame filters on each individual page.

The obvious workaround is to have an entirely separate instrument (or even player) that only appears in that one layout and flow. Then either copy and paste the vocal line, or cue it in. The advantage of cueing is that the music remains dynamically linked to the original; the main disadvantage is you’ll need to scale it up to look “normal” if that’s what you want.

Ah, thanks Leo. I thought I was overlooking something.

I can imagine this being a useful function, especially for what I just described: [baroque] vocal music usually requires the vocal line to be included in the instrumental parts in recitatives. I’m curious what you meant by ‘at least not without doing serious fiddling with the frame filters on each individual page’. Would serious fiddling make it possible?

Vaughan, you’ll see in the opera project files I sent you that I put all recits onto one “Recit.” Player. This allows you to add the recits to the Continuo part layout. (In fact, I also split the Basso line into two players, one for recits and one for arias, which you can merge into one Layout as one continuous part. Or not.)

Ben, that sounds like a clever solution, although I can’t see how you did it, as you only sent me a PDF. I’ll have a go at it, though, and see if I can make it work.

Ben’s solution involves having one Voice player for recits and another Voice player for everything else. If you put the two players in separate groups, Dorico won’t automatically number them. You can then assign your Recit Voice to the cello part layout.

It’s a much better elegant solution than mine.

The answer to most questions about staff layout is “Add another Player”.

Does this mean having all the vocal parts doubled in the cello part (as a single player)?

No.

Players:
Voice 1: recits
Voice 2: arias
Cello

Score: contains all three players, with Empty Staves Hidden (or just don’t assign superfluous players to individual flows).

Cello Part Layout: assign Cello Player and Voice 1 Recit stave.

Nothing gets doubled; nothing gets copied and pasted; nothing gets cued.

But I do need two separate players for each vocal part, one for recits and one for arias, right?

Yes.

Dorico still numbers them even though they’re not grouped.

Put one Voice in one group and the other Voice in another group.

Thanks. I guess grouping one is enough to prevent numbering.