Any plans for programmable fermatas in Dorico?

Dorico
#1

As the title suggests, are there any plans to implement programmable fermatas? For instance, fermatas are just there for if you want to personally perform the music you write or have others perform it, but they do nothing during playback. I was thinking it might be nice to have an option, like a pop up that asks how long (in seconds) you’d like the fermata to last.

This is mainly for mock up purposes for me, but it beats the alternative of entering blank bars or lots of rests to achieve the same effect for, say, the delay in a cadence.

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#2

Playback of fermati is definitely on the development team’s todo list. Paul (the developer responsible for this area) has highlighted that it’s a very complex area.

From a Facebook thread, for instance:

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In the meantime, you could draw a steep trough into the tempo track in Play mode, which would fix the playback without showing anything on the score or parts.

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#3

This is indeed my current tactic.

#4

If the Team is working on configurable playback for fermatas, is there any chance they would be able to do something similar for pausa’s? I realize this would be more complex, not only because a pausa creates a (short) silence rather than just extending the length of all notes and rests at a given location, but also because some pausa’s are used to give a brief delay to all instruments simultaneously while at other time the pausa would only be used in one or some instruments as a breath between phrases.

Although I am thinking primarily of the comma symbol, I expect the same routine, only longer, could apply to a railroad-tracks caesura.

If the adjustable playback technique were implemented for caesura, users could assign it and configure it to a comma as well when a tutti pausa was needed; and when needed only as a phrasing or breath mark for a single player the user could assign their own custom technique to a (second implementation of the) comma symbol .

#5

I want this, as well. though i think seconds is not a good idea. it wouldnt scale with tempo changes, and if it did, it would produce weird fractions of seconds. i think better would be how many beats you want it to last (including fractions of beats, of course). though, perhaps an alternate option for seconds, if you dont want it to scale with tempo.

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#6

I guess it depends if you mean fermatas or full caesuras. I could see it easier to think of fermatas in terms of beats but caesuras In terms of overall time.

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#7

But if the caesura routine were to be used for pausa’s as well, the time would need to be measured in very small increments (decimals?)

#8

I have no doubt that when tempo alteration for fermatas is added, it will cover all the holds and pauses., and will be Awesome.

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