Staff Label for Divisi Strings

Dorico
1

I am writing a piece that requires the upper four string sections. Violin I, Violin II, Viola, and Cello to divide into 2 staves. Right now, I have grouped the divisi staves, and I would like them to show something like
[Violin I] between the two violin 1 staves and then with each staff show 1 and 2. Kind of like the way Dorico can do it with Identical Solo Staves. The issue is, since strings are section instruments I do not know how to achieve the same result. Does anyone have an idea how to accomplish this?

2

In Setup mode, you should only have four section players, one for each instrument.

Then, where you want the division to change (or at the start of the piece), right-click on a staff, select Staff > Change Divisi… and then click on Add Section Player. You can then either do this for the other staves, or select the Divisi change and Alt-click the other staves (at the same rhythmic position) to duplicate the same divisions.

If, later in the piece, you want to restore unison, right-click the staff and go to Staff > Restore Unison.

string_divisi

Also note that you can condense these staves onto one staff, which may be useful if the parts are almost unison, or in rhythmic unison.

string_divisi_condense

See this article for more info:

3

Thanks Jester.
I know about that solution, it’s just that I do not want the articulations to spill over into each others’ staves. I use noteperformer and going that route always presents the issue of articulations from one divisi staff spilling over into the other.

4

To avoid that situation, you can enable IRV, which I believe stands for Independently Route Voices. This makes each voice have its own channel so their playback does not conflict with each other.

string_divisi_voices

When doing this, you should keep track of the kind of division associated with each voice. If you assign Staff (a) Upstem Voice 1 to a half-section, then if you restore unison, Staff (a) Upstem Voice 1 will still be a half-section. If you want to play a separate full-section patch, you should write this in a new voice on Staff (a).

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