I was struggling to get the chords to show above the bass part and checked off “show for rhythm section instruments”, but it wasn’t working until I figured out by trial and error that Contrabass is (I think) the only one in the “strings” section to work (ie. the chords appeared). Apparently String Bass and Upright Bass aren’t considered rhythm section.
To be honest, I don’t know what the nuances are in terms of these bass instrument names, so I searched the help to see how Dorico defines rhythm section. All I could find was this.
I decided to check out the keyboard instruments while I was at it. Interestingly, melodica and clavichord count, but harpsichord doesn’t.
I assume there was some method to the categorization? In any case, it would help if the documentation was more specific.
Thanks for your feedback about the documentation, which I have made a note of.
These options are set per-player, so if the players in your project each only hold one instrument, then set the per-player options for chord symbol visibility to “all instruments” – that shows chord symbols above all instruments held by the corresponding player(s).
New Dorico convert here, and running into this same question: how/where does Dorico define which instruments are “rhythm section”?
In my case: I’m doing music for classical mandolin in combination with classical guitar. When the guitar part has chords, they are by default showing in the mandolin parts because, apparently, mandolin is defined as a rhythm section instrument. That may be true in bluegrass etc, but isn’t true for classical music. So, it will apparently require creating an entirely new instrument just to get around this?
You can just edit the definition for the current instrument and untick the rhythm instrument box.
You can also right click the Player in Setup mode and turn off chord symbols for all instruments for that Player.
Welcome to the forum @Jeff_Brumley !
Information about the rhythm section is here.
Instruments can be defined as being in the rhythm section, or not, in the Edit Instruments dialog (requires Dorico Pro).
Got it now. Somehow my eyes went right past that checkbox multiple times. Thanks!