I go from 2-fold divisi in the cello part to a 4-fold divisi. In the staff where this happens (in the middle of the page shown), Dorico is only showing cello 1 and 2 (there are notes for 3 and 4 in those two bars rest). It fixes itself in the next staff. Note I put a “visibility reset” for all 4 celli staves in the frame break on top just in case, but that didn’t help.
It rather looks like a bug or am I (yet again) missing something obvious…?
Happy to e-mail/submit the file somewhere if anyone is keen to have a look (not sure what the procedure is these days).
And this might be further clue: if I insert a system break on the offending staff and try to force a “staff show”, the first two cellos are labeled “cello (1)” and “cello (2)”, but the next ones “cello (c)” and “cello (d)”. They don’t respond to the “show staff”.
Is the issue that you are trying to make two changes of divisi within the same system? Dorico cannot do this at present, so the first divisi change it encounters on the system will be the one that is used for the system as a whole.
No, I don’t think that is the issue (unless I misunderstand you). There is a divisi-change at the top of the page shown, going to two cellos. Then there’s a divisi change 2 systems lower, going to 4 cellos. That divisi change is in the middle of the staff, which seems to confuse Dorico. If I put a system break right at the divisi change, it is working fine. Happy to send you the file, if you want to have a look?
If you already have divisi sections active at the start of the system, then you won’t be able to change to a different arrangement in that system; the change will indeed need to come at a system break.
Ok, thanks. So you mean you can’t go from e.g. two-fold divisi to four-fold divisi at all (within a system), even though it’s only one CHANGE within the system?
That’s right, because at the start of the system, the previous divisi change is still in effect, it’s prevailing (e.g. perhaps imagine that at the start of every system from that position on, Dorico’s having to make an active choice to show more staves than normal for that player, but that decision gets made once at the start of each system and can’t change within the system) .
It’s on my to-do list to clarify these circumstances in the manual as well.
Ok, thanks for clarifying that. It’s not a major issue anymore, because the work-around (force a system break at the same bar-line), is obvious. And it doesn’t happen very obvious (if in doubt, blame Wagner!).
If you would allow me, could I say that to me this is not an issue of “clarifying it in the manual”. A mismatch between score and part should really never happen, unless the user explicitely asks for it. Indeed, it caused me some embarrasment during rehearsal, as I was wrongly criticizing players for not playing their notes.
Assuming it’s not easy to fix this because of the software-architecture, would it be a thought to automatically make a divisi change always a system-break by default (in both the score and the relevant part)?
Indeed. Although I presume the gold-standard is to not to have to proof-read parts at all ;-).
The thorny aspect of this issue is that you create the divisi while inputting the music, which (presumably like most people) I do in write-mode and panel-view. At that point you are blissfully unaware of system and frame breaks.
So the proofreading step you mention is to go through each part scanning for divisi labels that don’t coincide with system breaks. But that is a task is onerous, error-prone, and could/should be automated.
