Change Instruments on Just One Staff

• Jun 1, 2015 - 02:14

I have a completed score using piano in the treble and bass clefs. I want to change the instruments for the whole score to C-trumpet in the treble and something else in the bass. But when I right click in a measure or on a note, go to staff properties and put in a new instrument, it changes both. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.


Comments

If you want two different instruments on playback, you need your score to have two different instruments, not one instrument with two staves. Go to Edit / Instruments, add the second instrument, then copy and paste the content from one of your current staves to that instrument, then go back to Edit / Instruments delete the now-unneeded staff.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

This forum is amazing! It took just 5 minutes to get a reply that solved my problem and 2 more minutes to get another one that did the same. Thank you!

My playback is just right now, although my score looks a little funny. My original treble clef is still there with no notes, and when I try to delete it with control-delete, it deletes the whole score. My new treble clef is below the bass clef. Is there another way to delete the original treble clef and put the new treble clef on top? I can live with it the way it is, but I wouldn't mind having a better looking score. (I can upload my new score if that would help.)

Though the piano covers two staves, they are actually the same instrument, and so it's impossible to change only half of it to a different instrument. What you want to do is go to Edit -> Instruments… (or hit "i" on your keyboard), add the instruments you want, and copy and paste from the piano to the two new instruments. Afterwards, you can delete the piano the same way you added the other instruments.

I know that this is an old thread. But I was just thinking, doing this gets rid of the capability to make cross-staff notations. It's not able to be done if the staffs are separate and not of the same instrument. Do you think there's a possibility that cross-staff notation will be allowed between staffs that aren't of the same instrument? Or am I just going to have to decide whether I want separate instrument changes or cross-staff notation?

EDIT: For now, as a workaround, I'll just make the staffs that are separate instruments play as invisible staffs and I'll use a no-play staff for the cross-notation visuals.

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