Anticipated Fermata Duration

Dorico
#1

The thread “Fermatas in Cues” prompted me to wonder how the playback implementation of fermatas (if such is planned) will work. In Finale a fermata lengthens a note by a percent of its original value. The problem one encounters in Finale is that when one places a fermata on an eighth note and then places “courtesy” fermatas in other parts (perhaps holding a half note), Finale applies the fermata playback to the longer note, which may be unintended.

When one places a fermata on a note in Dorico, the program automatically places “courtesy” fermatas on all the remaining parts–a great time saver. But this leads me to ask if the Development Team has considered how this will affect the user’s control of playback. I’m sure the Team will come up with something amazing when this is finally implemented.

#2

Isn’t the placement of the fermata likely “smart”? That is, it may look like it’s over the whole bar, but that’s just a visual. In reality, it’s affixed to a precise rhythmic location in one originating part, and fermatas in other parts follow suit.

At least that’s my assumption, based on how Dorico treats these sorts of things elsewhere. I’m thinking of converting notes to slashes - the pitches still play back because the data is retained below the surface.

#3

Is this really a problem? Dorico knows what the rhythmic position of the “real” fermata (the one input by the user) is. So you just “press pause” at that instant in time.

Somehow you need to specify how much extra time the fermata adds - but that had better be possible on a case-by-case basis, even if there is a default value. Specifying the extra time as a percentage of the note length doesn’t always make sense anyway - for example a fermata on the first note of a run of 16th notes might be two beats long, but a human playing the score wouldn’t think of that as “800% of the length of the original note” or whatever - more likely, they would think of it as something like “2 extra beats in the bar”.

#4

Are you saying that Dorico already plays back fermatas? Last time I applied one, that was not my impression.
I agree with Rob that one needs the ability to specify how long the fermata should hold.

#5

No, Dorico doesn’t play them yet.

What I was saying is that compared with the way they have to be used in other notation apps (i.e. the user has to decide where to put the fermatas on all the staves where the note rhythms are different) playing them in Dorico should be easier because the semantics are already known, and the score notation is guaranteed to have a meaning that is consistent with those semantics.

This is unlike FInale or Sibelius where you can write something which “sort of makes sense to human performers” (you hope!) but the software has to second-guess what the logic (if any!) behind the notation is.