Hiding Empty Staves

In a conductor's score, it is common practice to present staves only for those instruments that are playing. For example, if a system in the score displays measures 10 through 14, and the flutes are not playing in these measures, then the conductor's part omits the flute staff in this system.

Composer offers an option to hide empty staves, according to this common practice for a conductor's part. If a staff has lyrics, but no notes, Composer will still display the staff. If no staves in a system have notes or lyrics, then Composer displays only the first staff.

Composer's option for hiding empty staves works on a per-part basis. Usually, you will want to use the Hide Empty Staves options for the conductor's part, but not other parts.

To hide empty staves in the current part.

1.      In the Part menu choose the Hide Empty Staves command.

     -- OR --

     Type "qhes" for Quick Hide Empty Staves.

     Composer will display the Hide Empty Staves dialog, filled out with a list of tracks as illustrated below:

2.      Turn on the first checkmark for "Hide empty staves for tracks selected below."

3.      Select the tracks for which you wish to hide empty staves. You can individually select or unselect a track by clicking its name in the listbox. Empty staves will be hidden only for the tracks you select.

4.      Click OK to complete the operation.

In Window View, you have the option of showing or hiding track controls, which include the Mute and Solo buttons. If you choose to show the track controls, then you may want to set this checkmark: "Do not hide empty staves when track controls (play, solo, etc.) are shown." If you do not set this checkmark, on some pages the track controls for some tracks may be hidden along with the empty staves, so that you will then have no visible means of controlling (muting, etc.) the hidden track.

To change the behavior of hidden empty staves in Window View:

1.      Turn off the second checkmark if you want empty staves to always be hidden in Window View, the same way that they will be hidden in the printed score (as shown in Page View). By default, the checkmark is off.

2.      If you do not want empty staves to be hidden in Window View when the track controls are visible then turn on the second checkmark.

If the track controls are not visible, then the first option determines the visibility of empty staves regardless of whether you set the second checkmark in the Hide Empty Staves dialog or not. For instructions on showing or hiding the track controls, see Track Control Buttons.

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