🎬 This article is a transcription of one of the excellent tutorial videos posted to the official Dorico YouTube channel.
Presented here in written form with the kind permission of its creator, Anthony Hughes, this tutorial is titled “Adding Staves to Instruments in Dorico Pro”…
Hello, I’m Anthony Hughes, and in this video I’ll be showing you how to add additional staves to instruments in Dorico Pro 2, the advanced music notation software from Steinberg.
Adding an extra staff (00:15)
Certain types of notation, for example some more complex piano works, require additional staves to be added and removed at different points in the music.
In Dorico Pro 2, it’s easy to add and remove staves from any instrument belonging to solo players. Simply select an item in the music where you want the new staff to appear directly above or below, then right-click and choose Staff > Add Staff Above or Below.
The new staff will be created for the duration of the flow.
A signpost will appear at the rhythmic position where the new staff begins, on the top staff of the instrument.
You can drag the signpost to change the start position of the new staff, and with it selected, you can press delete to remove it altogether. Removing the staff won’t actually delete the music and if the staff is added again at a later date, then the music will reappear along with it.
Additional staves can be created above or below any staff,
they don’t just have to go at the outer extremes of the instrument, allowing for complete control and creativity.
Show preamble (01:19)
Sometimes it can be helpful to show the key signature and, in particular, the clef of the additional staff. These items, generally shown at the beginning of each system, are known collectively as the preamble, and you can switch this on for additional staves in the properties panel.
Removing staves (01:38)
To stop a staff from drawing at any point in the flow, make a selection on the staff you would like to remove, right-click and choose Staff > Remove Staff.
This can be any staff; it doesn’t have to be an additional one that you have already created.
Again, the signpost can be dragged to modify the point at which the staff stops drawing, and they do not have to align with barlines.
Showing extra staves across full system (02:03)
If you would prefer for any staves starting or stopping to draw for the entirety of the system, rather than appear and disappear abruptly mid-system; you can open the Layout Options by pressing Ctrl+Shift+L (that’s Cmd+Shift+L on Mac), switching to the Staves and Systems category and, at the bottom of the Ossias and Extra Staves section, enabling the checkbox to ‘Show extra staves across full systems when starting or stopping.
… I’m Anthony Hughes, thanks for watching.
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I very much hope you’ve found this video transcription to be helpful. If you have, please subscribe to OF NOTE and follow me on Twitter for ongoing music notation news and info. And don’t forget to subscribe to the official Dorico YouTube channel to see many more videos like this one. ~robert puff