I am working on a percussion piece that has numerous players, each one (depending on the flow) might be holding several percussion instruments. Instead of naming them “Marimba 1”, “Xylophone 2”, etc., the piece numbers them “Player 1”, “Player 2”, etc. And to add some further information, this is a piece already published. I am just trying to move our catalog over into Dorico. So in this case, changing the numbering and naming is not really an option.
Each flow has the possibility of each player holding different instruments. What is the best way to do this? For example, I know that I can change Glockenspiel to “Player 1”. But what happens then in flow 3, if player 1 doesn’t “play” the Glockenspiel? IIRC, Dorico will not continue the naming of “Player 1”. I am trying to figure out what will be best and the easiest way to go about getting this correct.
Also, I am curious if this is being looked at for the next version of Dorico?
Labelling staves in the score with the Layout name (“Player 2”, “Percussion 3”) instead of the instrument the player ist currently playing on has been discussed, so the team knows about it. (I would need this myself.)
There does not seem to be a great workaroung currently, though
You could work your way around some of those issues by adding more players that are only assigned to specific flows, but that could quickly become quite confusing…
There is indeed not a good workaround for this at present. Greater flexibility for staff labels, including making it possible to use the player’s name rather than the name(s) of the instrument(s) held by that player, is planned for the future, but there won’t be any great advance in this area in the next release, I’m afraid: that and bracketing/bracing are the two areas that I really wanted us to improve that we have not yet been able to address due to time constraints.
Thanks for the thorough answer. Rome wasn’t built in a day, I (as well as others) can’t expect Dorico to be built in a day. I can hold off on re-engraving this work until better staff label functionality is available.
