Ok, I have been using Dorico for many years, but this is the first time I’m writing a large orchestral work in it. There are two things I’m a bit unsure about, even after browsing the manual and Youtube tutorials. In order to avoid a lot of extra work in the final editing stage, I would like to ask if any of you kind experienced folks can give me advise on these two topics:
String divisi: Should I use the divisi function whenever the strings play divisi, or only when they play some polyphony? I mean, when they play completely homophonic divisi, I could just write both voices in the same staff and write “divisi”. I guess these parts I will collapse anyway in the end. Or what is the advantage of alwazs using the divisi function?
I’m slightly confused about the percussion kit thing. When I put several instruments to the player, they all get their own staff in the score, but there is also the function of having the different one-line instruments combined in one staff. I thought that looked a bit confusing so for now I have one staff per instrument. Luckily, Dorico combines everything on one line in the part for the player anyway. But what is best to do in the full score?
The advantage of always using the divisi feature is flexibility. You can split them easily if you need to. If you’re sure that you’ll never split the music to different staves you don’t need to use it.
I haven’t done much with percussion kits myself, but when you say separate staves are you talking about galley view or page view? Galley view will always give each instrument its own staff. In page and fill views these will automatically collapse to a staff per player. Note this is not the same thing as condensing.
Adding to/clarifying this: percussion kits will be always displayed with one of the the three options set in Layout options>Players>Percussion for that particular layout (5-lines staff, grid, single lines: all can be customised in the Edit Percussion Kit dialogue), and this in both Page or Galley view. So they remain as set in layout options, and not splitted in Galley view.
What you are referring to is the Instrument Changes, which, if activated for that particular layout, will
in Page view: join the instruments in a single staff with appropriate labelling, if the instruments are not playing at the same time
in Galley view: show the separate staves for each instrument held by that player (apart from the the kit/s, which will follow the Layout options).
John Barron did a Discover Dorico episode on writing a symphony 3 years ago that is still well worth viewing. There will undoubtedly be much to go through quickly if you have been using Dorico for awhile but it helped me tremendously including things like the ease of writing one section at a time in galley view where it is easy to add and delete staves as needed for divisi.
Thank you. My problem is - If I combine the instruments of a percussion player in a kit, the instrument names don’t show anymore, and after browsing the internet, it seems like there is no easy solution to this. At least when using a grit, it seems like there is a way when using a 5-line staff. As it is, in the full score the names of the different percussion instruments show at the beginning of each line, whereas in the part there is no text at all. Surely that doesn’t make any sense? Is the player supposed to look up in the score which line is which and remember it for the whole piece? (See screenshots to illustrate what I mean). I don’t understand why Dorico here makes a difference between 5-line system or grit.
I think I prefer just having one line for percussion without pitch anyway. It seems like my workaround is to simply not combine the percussion instruments into a kit but just add them to the player. Then the names show every time a new instrument is used. I’ll figure out what to do in the full score…
Hi @silvanloher, you have really many possibilities to manage the labelling of instruments, also in a grid:
you can put the instruments names in the layout option (editing it in Setup mode>Layouts)
you can activate Full and abbreviated staff labels for that particular layout
you can use Percussion Legends (both as Sounding instruments or all instruments). They are also possible in grid view, but you need to activate that Option
[@Lillie_Harris, in the manual it seems that that relatively new option, Show percussion legends on grid, is not jet mentioned; only in the Version History]:
OMG, THANK YOU so much for your instructive example! Quick question: when I choose 5 lines in the setup for the percussion kit, the result is still only the three lines as shown in both my and your example. Do you knbow why that is? Even though I currently have onlt 3 instruments in that kit, surely if I choose 5-line stave Dorico should show a regular 5line staff?
I’m still unsure what to do. Somehow, for me it looks less messy with just one line and always the instrument indicated by text, instead of these 3 lines. I read somewhere on this forum that percussionists in general prefer 5 lines though. Do you by chance know what is best?
The three panels in the Edit Percussion Kit dialogue let you edit/customise how each visualisation will look like (beyond setting the voices and setting up the names and playback techniques…), when you will choose which one of these three visualisations you want to use in a specific layout (see next step). So if you change the Layout options anytime (as in next step), you have already set up how the kit will look like with a different visualisation :
Now: you need to tell Dorico which one of the three visualisation for the kit you want, in a specific layout. You make this in Layout Options>Players>Percussion. Make sure you have the desired Layout selected on the Right, before you change the Layout Options:
I see - that’s not very intuitive to me, that the change of the visualisation in the setup menu doesn’t automatically change how it looks in the score - so that would have taken me a long time to find out. Thank you, much appreciated!
Help! I have basically finished the score of my symphony now, but I’m still struggliong with the percussion kits. Nothing seems to work, even if I follow the steps from your reply and from other treads here in the forum. This is the options I chose in layout options:
I also chose the layout option that @TonH mentioned for Staff Labels, but still no names showing.
I also chose Edit > and thenNotations > and thenPercussion > and thenLegend for Sounding Instruments.
Still, no names showing.
And, frustratingly, when some of the instruments play, there is a completely unnecessary bar rest in another voice in the same system. As farn as I could find out in the forum, this is a problem that has been around for years with no simple solution.
I just doon’t understand, in what world would a percussion part wjhere the instruments that are supposed to be played are not named a single time make any sense?? I’m getting frustrated here
Another quick question to your screenshot: What do you mean by “Layout name, EDITED WITH LINE FEEDS” - what are line feeds?
It really seems like nothing is working for me when I choose 5-line representation. Apparently, percussionists prefer to have their orchestral parts on 5 lines. But in my piece, each of the two players has only 3 different instruments in their kits, so I think it actually looks much cleaner with a grid with 3 lines :-/. Saves me the trouble with the unnecessary rests, and having to add a percussion legend eacht time they change instrument…
Hi @silvanloher, I think the faster way to have your questions answered is to upload the Dorico file, and ask specific questions referring to specific positions in the layout (bar numbers etc…). There is mostly a solution for everything (or sometimes workarounds)
Hi @silvanloher, those are just line breaks, like when you press enter in a text editor to start a new text line. To have the different names of the percussions broken into different lines of text, (when using the layout name token, in a Page template, to display them), you can write your layout name into a text editor (you can use also the larger fields in the Project Info temporarily), then copy the text into the layout name field (when you double click a layout name in Setup mode-right panel you can edit the names).
Maybe this post can give you also other methods… (but as often the case is: uploading your Dorico project is the fastest way to receive specific advices):
I only use the manual, this forum and sometimes the relevant facebook group and Youtube channel, so no worries.
