I often write choir reductions, so I need a lot of voice-specific dynamics. They work fine, although it would be great if dynamics attached to an up-stem voice were automatically placed above the staff, and, accordingly, below the staff for down-stem voices.
How can I identify whether dynamics are assigned to a specific voice or the whole staff?
AFAIK, you can’t. Suggestion: Why not color voice-specific dynamics accordingly (when Note and rest colors is switched on), and leave staff-specific dynamics black?
Yes, I agree this would be useful (we already do this for lyrics), and it’s on our list for the future.
On a related note: Gould states that, in a choir reduction, dynamics for the upper staff (usually Soprano and Alto) should go above the staff, but dynamics for the lower staff (Tenor and Bass) should go below. How do I do this (other than manually)? Especially with grouped dynamics?
You should be able to select the first note of the lower staff, then select until the end of flow, then filter all dynamics and in the properties panel, choose position below. It should not interfere with grouping or linking.
To expand on Marc’s excellent advice, there’s no way to do this automatically: dynamics will always go above the staff for a vocal instrument, even with a choir reduction. I agree it would be nice for Dorico to handle this more automatically in future.