Sub-Divisi inside Divisi + Condensing Options for Divisi / Staff Labels

[J.A.Macias]

Hi everyone.

This days I’ve been taking some film scoring and orchestration classes. And I’ve been told to transcribe some measures for a string section. The topic specifically is combining the Violins I and II into a Macro Violin Section, that one can divide into 2 (like always), but also 3 and then one can write divisi inside the divisions. And in the violin part all Violins I and II get the same part, like this excersice:

And also notate the score of the string section, the excercise being this one:

As you see

1. Violins staff label is just one, not Violins I, II nor III
2. In the violin staves, there are divisis notated and condensed into the same staff, but celli are notated each in their staves, not condensed.

What does this have to do with Dorico, first of all I wanted to take two approaches:

1. Placing just one violin section in the setup and set divisis when needed:

• Pros: Straightforward divisis and part setup
• Cons: Cannot do sub-divisis inside divisis and parts and score mess up if I try to do it

2. Placing the Violins I and II on the setup, and write divisis on the second violin when needed, and making a combined part of Violins I and II for the players.

• Pros: Allows one to control sub-divisis more accurately in parts

• Cons: Staff Labels become crazy, specially when doing many divisis, as well as the default divisi number assigning may mislead in the players’ part. + condensing divisi condenses all divisi so in the player’s part if I have three part and one has a divisi it will condense everything into two staves.

• Wrong Divisi Labels + Staff Labels
  

  

• Complete Condensing in all parts when one wants just violins to be condensed, but not celli
  

  

• Part having the same issues for divisi notations
  

  

I am not finding a convenient way to notate this on Dorico and make the parts, I tried to add staff above or below but Dorico doesn’t allow to do it if the instrument is a section player

So my question is if there an effective way to:

1. Create a common staff-label
2. Condense just some divisis in both the full score and the violins part.
3. Create sub-divisis inside already splitted staves

Thanks in advance.

[derAbgang]

I’m not sure why this topic is so intriguing … been reading and re-reading and I can’t seem to understand why this:

Placing just one violin section in the setup and set divisis when needed

… doesn’t work.

If I simply setup 1 violin section and change divisi 1+2, then change divisi 1+2+3 reduce back until unison…

Dorico condenses as follows:

… much as I would expect. The part are also what I would expect:

I’m not really sure what you mean by “sub-divisi”. If you mean taking the 2nd section of an a2 divisi and spliting that up, well, I’m not sure that Dorico can do that so I’ll defer to the experts.

Also, to exclude the celli, go to Condensing options and mark them in the “Groups to exclude from condensing”.

[Derrek]

As a complete novice/observer in this area, I wonder how these parts would be apportioned in the recording session. Wouldn’t the conductor or concertmaster just assign the parts (disperse the music) on the spot to the various players, de facto determining how many were on each part?

[derAbgang]

Unless otherwise specified explicitly in the score, e.g., Debussy La Mer first movement, 2 before rehearsal 9: 16 celli initially a8 (2+2+2+2) then a16 (4+4+4+4), the conductor or concertmaster would definitely need to make the division choice.

I also don’t really understand the problem from the OP. Is this just trying to recreate the exercises in notation software or is there some other problem to solve?

[derAbgang]

Also, sorry, but the questions at the end:

@J.A.Macias

So my question is if there an effective way to:

1. Create a common staff-label
2. Condense just some divisis in both the full score and the violins part.
3. Create sub-divisis inside already splitted staves

#1

Grouping the staff labels of adjacent identical instruments

#2

Including/Excluding condensing groups

#3 I don’t believe is possible but I’d be interested if there was an elegant (or even hack) solution.

[J.A.Macias]

Thank you both for your replies, let me add more info:

@Derrek

Wouldn’t the conductor or concertmaster just assign the parts (disperse the music) on the spot to the various players, de facto determining how many were on each part?

@derAbgang

I also don’t really understand the problem from the OP. Is this just trying to recreate the exercises in notation software or is there some other problem to solve?

As for this let me share you the webpage we’ve been given for this exercise, it is from Tim Music from his DeBreved orchestration blog: Divisi - Divide and Conquer (timusic.net)

In summary it is a way to think how to make some divisi in strings consciously specially in recording sessions, having a thought on how string players and conductors split a divisi among a section and use it at one’s advantage consciously. Also the way of thinking violins in just one group, and have them on a single combined part for the whole Violins I and II sections for quick balancing purposes during a recording session, something I was unfamiliar until I’ve read it.
And the exercise my mentor has given me is read it and try to replicate the same examples the page gives (the two screenshots at the beginning of the post) and have it written.
The examples on the webpage use Finale and I’ve seen my mentor doing them on Sibelius, both having their different workarounds; but I haven’t found a way to do it in Dorico yet, at least elegantly without requiring so much workarounds and accessing to the forums/user manual.

@derAbgang

I’m not really sure what you mean by “sub-divisi”. If you mean taking the 2nd section of an a2 divisi and spliting that up, well, I’m not sure that Dorico can do that so I’ll defer to the experts.

Yeah exactly, let me explain with this example:

@J.A.Macias

Screenshot 2024-01-28 at 01.47.412238×1510 327 KB

You see the violins section is divided in an a3 at the beginning, like three different groups (that’s why G1, G2, G3) and inside this a3 there is an a2 div on the first and second groups.
That’s why I mean by a sub-divisi, (I don’t know if there is a proper musical term for this one, so I’ll be thankful if one tells me if there is one or how to refer it to avoid confusion).
A workaround I am just thinking is having a Violins III section and dividing them as usual, and combining all in a part and staff label so I can divide them as Dorico does, and start engraving the part in my convenience, however it gives me an issue on the staff labels*, let me elaborate as it chains with the other topics:

@J.A.Macias

Condense just some divisis in both the full score and the violins part.

I’ve found a workaround for this and is applying condensing changes to the full score and I’ve achieved this result:

Now violins are condensed, and Violas and Celli are separated, just like I wanted.

@J.A.Macias

Create a common staff-label

This one is being quite a pain, because I’ve already set the engraving option to combine the group between staves, but the way Dorico handles it as I have the score set in Violins I and II, it still divides them because of the divisi:

And I’ve been trying to remove the roman numerals and try to combine it using the layout changes, but the most close I’ve got is this result, having one one staff label for Violas, Celli, but with the roman numerals on the Violins I and II (*this is the issue that may arise when adding the violins III as workaround that I’ve mentioned earlier for doing divisi):

Contrary to if these were shown having the Layout options checked, where the divisi numbers are shown in all Violins II, Violas and Celli:

I wonder if there is a way to remove the roman numerals from the violin sections and just have “Violins” in the staff label.

Thanks for the info provided until now, I’ll be pending on what solutions may come around to this topic.

[derAbgang]

Yes, I understand now. Thinking of violins 1 and 2 as single unit is interesting.

@J.A.Macias

I wonder if there is a way to remove the roman numerals from the violin sections and just have “Violins” in the staff label.

The closest solution I’ve played around with is to use a “group” in setup with individual violin sections. And in Layout Options, turn off “Show Player Group Names”. It’s not exactly like using G1/G2 etc from your example, but the concept is the same.

I also had Engraving Option/Staff Labels “Position of instrument name for grouped staff labels” set to centered, not top justified. You can also change the numbering from Roman to Arabic in the same dialog down a bit in the condensing section.

EDIT: also, “Staff labels for identical adjacent instruments helded by section players”

With this method, the sections remain sections and you can then further divide each with divisi. This is pretty close to what you are after, I believe.

[derAbgang]

Seems to work pretty well, actually:

… but as soon as you create the divisi, a new label is created magically … I’ve dug around but haven’t found how to turn that off yet. Worst case scenario, don’t use divisi/condensing, rather, chords and new voices …

… of course you need to play around with the paragraph style.

[Derrek]

This looks more like what Tim Davies was suggesting. Remember, he said that all players would get the entire violin part. In this case he would not give separate pars to the various sections. That makes things much easier from the formatting perspective.

divisiTest240128.dorico (639.9 KB)

(I’m a big fan of Time Davies’s debreved site.)

[derAbgang]

@Derrek

Remember, he said that all players would get the entire violin part.

… simple enough with an “All Violins” layout. Someone still has to divi (no pun intended) up the resources into the “groups”, meaning, the written page and/or part still doesn’t give precise allocation of resources not to mention when more emphasis is required for the melody, conductor will need to verbally shift resources in the session.

… interesting nonetheless, for sure.

[Derrek]

In his article (which you may have read) Tim Davies shows how he puts charts on the wall to show players the divisi setup he wants for each number. So that is something left to the conductor or section leader. I was just trying to show @J.A.Macias how he might follow Tim Davies’s lead and notate the part to achieve what I expect is his goal.

[J.A.Macias]

@Derrek

This looks more like what Tim Davies was suggesting. Remember, he said that all players would get the entire violin part. In this case he would not give separate pars to the various sections. That makes things much easier from the formatting perspective.

Yes I was thinking doing it that way as a workaround, inputting the notes like chords and adding the text as plain text instead of using Dorico’s divisi functionality. That is indeed a straightforward workaround and more “Sibelius” way, however I wonder if there is a way of doing it using the “Dorico” way (being it quite strong on the formatting of the final score and parts) that, at least for now, has the limitations on the Staff Labels, Divisi into an already divided part in the score and condensing the divisi parts into the players sheet music, in a smart way or manual way, and having Dorico’s automatic divisi formatting that in most cases works pretty well.

I’ve tried to do the exercise with all we have until now. Score and the Violins Part:

The workaround using 3 Violins works quite well for the full score formatting and using Dorico’s divisi functionality automatically, but still the Staff Labels are an issue.

On the violins (combined) part:

I’ve found Dorico is able to condense the divisis in the part, and for this case I’ve successfully got just have 3 staves with the divisis written on them using the condensing option in the layout options and selecting the combined part, so it is displayed quite straightforward.

However now that I see it, it can condense simple divisi from a part into just one staff quite in a smart way, however I don’t know one can force Dorico to condense it if it is a bit more complex, let me give an example using a part of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte:

The “classic” notation (although a bit less straighforward in my opinion) of the violins 2 part is this one, with the interchange of double stop pizz all condensed into one staff, followed by the simple sincopated notes section:

I’ve transcribed it into Dorico and formatted the Violins II part and used the condense divisi option:

The pizz section is displayed in separated staves rather than being condensed into one like the original notation from a part I’ve got from IMSLP. The arco section is condensed quite well though.

My question is, is there a way to force condensing in a part and customize which sections to have condensed and which not?

Just to have a register from the first questions and issues we want to get to know a feature for:

1. Common Staff Label for the whole Violins I and II, and maintaining it when doing divisi.

@derAbgang

… but as soon as you create the divisi, a new label is created magically … I’ve dug around but haven’t found how to turn that off yet. Worst case scenario, don’t use divisi/condensing, rather, chords and new voices …

2. Custom Divisi Condensing Change Formatting in Score (solved) and parts (what this post is about)

3. Making Sub-Divisi in an already divided part without having to require another player part to do divisis:

@derAbgang

The closest solution I’ve played around with is to use a “group” in setup with individual violin sections. And in Layout Options, turn off “Show Player Group Names”. It’s not exactly like using G1/G2 etc from your example, but the concept is the same.

Let me attach my Dorico Project so far so you can see what I’m doing:

Divisi Practices and Experiments - Jose_A_Macias.dorico (1007.7 KB)

Just to guide you in my project file: There is some tabs, the “Writing Score” is a layout I use to score something having a sketch staff at the bottom, the “Full Score” is the formatted one with breaks, condensing, etc. “Violins” is the “whole” violins section part. Inside there are two flows, flow I is the exercise from above, the second flow is the one that contains the Violins II extract from Ravel’s pavane.

[Derrek]

If the exercise you are working on is to follow Tim Davies’s model, then you do not want to use condensing. The exercise would be to print the violin part, no matter how divided, on one part to be distributed to all the violins. Condensing will produce separate parts, which is not what Tim Davies advocated in the article you referenced.

That is the idea that guided the sample file I posted.

At one time, Mr. Davies was on this forum. If he still monitors it, perhaps he can PM you if he has time.

[Janus]

@J.A.Macias

the second flow is the one that contains the Violins II extract from Ravel’s pavane.

Every time I have played this, the 2nds just div a 3 and no conductor has ever questioned it! Players will generally take the line of least resistance.

The simplest way to divide the violins into three equal parts is to divide both 1sts and 2nds into three and duplicate the lines, so top vln1 = top vln2 etc.

If you want to see how the classical composers approached this sort of problem, look to Strauss (Also Sprach Zarathustra opening after RM 1), any Mahler symphony, the slow movement of Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concerto or the 2nd Symphony. There you will see many different forms of divisi and doubling.