User manual

Table Of Contents

Instruments

In Dorico SE, an instrument is an individual musical instrument, such as a piano, a ute, or a

violin. Human voices, such as soprano or tenor, are also considered instruments.

In Dorico SE, instruments are held by players, just as real instruments are held by human players.

Section players can only hold a single instrument but solo players can hold multiple instruments,

which allows you to handle instrument changes easily, such as when an oboist doubling the cor

anglais switches from one instrument to the other.

This means that before you can add instruments to a project, you must rst add players or

ensembles, which may in turn also be assigned to groups if needed. If you add ensembles, the

appropriate instruments for the ensemble are automatically added to the players.

Each instrument automatically gets its own staff, but when instrument changes are allowed, the

music for multiple instruments held by the same solo player can appear on the same staff as

long as no notes overlap. By default,

Dorico SE allows instrument changes in all layouts and

automatically shows instrument change labels. This means that only the top instrument held by

players is shown automatically in the music area. You can see staves for all instruments in galley

view, and you can allow/disallow instrument changes in each layout independently. You can also

hide/show empty staves in each layout independently.

Instruments in Dorico SE do not have limited ranges; it is possible to notate any pitch in any

in the MIDI note range 0-127 can be represented. Similarly, if you input a pitch beyond the range

of samples in the assigned VST instrument, the pitch does not sound in playback.

You can change instruments at any time, add/delete them from players, and move them

between players.