User manual

Table Of Contents

A staff is a line or group of lines on which musical notes are notated to indicate the pitch and

rhythm of music. Pitched instruments use the traditional ve-line staff and unpitched

instruments often use a single-line staff.

Notes are positioned on the lines and in the spaces on ve-line staves, and can also use ledger

lines above/below the staff to represent pitches that cannot t on the staff.

A phrase on a ve-line staff The same phrase on a single-line staff

The pitch and register of notes on ve-line staves are determined by clefs, which can also be

combined with octave lines to indicate what pitches performers play.

On ve-line staves for unpitched percussion instruments, the different staff positions correspond

to different percussion instruments.

Because it is often necessary to have different staff sizes in different layouts depending on their

type, such as having smaller staves in full score layouts than in part layouts, in Dorico Elements

you can change various aspects of staves in Setup > Layout Options.