Adding up and down arrows for rhythm lesson

Hi. I’m wanting to input up and down arrows over some of my beginning band lessons. Example, over a whole note I want to input a down, up, down, up, down, up, down, and up arrow. What’s the easiest way to do this in Dorico 4? Thank you in advance.

Playing techniques are the easiest to create and use for this purpose, when you want a symbol centered on a beat position.

  • Create a new Playing technique, name it “Down” and set the type to Glyph
  • Edit the symbol: Remove the text string that’s there, select the character range Arrows and arrowheads (U+EB60–EB8F, pretty far down the list) and double-click a downward-pointing arrow glyph to insert it
  • Repeat to create an “Up” technique

Then place them on the staff:

  • Set the rhythmic grid to an eighth note
  • Place the caret on the downbeat and add the Down symbol, either with the popup or the panel
  • Move the caret an eighth note to the right and add the Up symbol

Once you have one of each, you can set the rhythmic grid to a quarter note, select both symbols, and Alt-click to the next beat on the staff until you have all 4 beats filled.

This method is more involved than using text, but much more robust for correct positioning. You may need to limit the number of bars on a line (or increase the note spacing rule) to fit all 8 arrows on a whole note without colliding.

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