Is there a way to stop a multiple-bar rest in a part from breaking for a fermata? Particularly for an entirely tacet section, where I currently have:
|---- 120 -----| Oh, here’s one more bar with a fermata. ||
Not the answer you’re looking for, but I don’t think it’s correct to include any info in a multi-bar rest. A fermata is indeed an event, and requires its own bar. Otherwise, where in the multi-bar rest is the fermata occurring?
For this purpose, I create a ‘shadow flow’ that’s entirely empty, and assign that to all players that have tacet, instead of the actual flow with the music (and the fermata). It’s a workaround that clutters your flow list, but it works. Also see this thread.
Are we talking about a completely tacet flow, or a long section within a flow that contains music “around” the multi-bar rest?
It’s not necessarily an empty flow, but I don’t get “tacet al fine” if the last bar has a fermata.
It’s a completely empty flow (no content whatsoever, just a title and maybe a tempo indication), assigned only to the players/parts that need to see just a tacet movement. The ‘real’ flow, the one with the actual music in it, is excluded from the part layouts for these silent players. In the score and in the lay-outs for players that actually do play the movement, you include the real flow, and omit the tacet flow.
This also avoids ‘Tacet al fine’ after any musical information before the end of the piece. A feature you can switch off, by the way: Engraving Options > Rests.
One might argue that Dorico should be more intelligent by showing an overall ‘Tacet’ as soon as a player has not a single note to play, even if the flow contains fermatas, tempo changes, rehearsal marks etc. On the other hand, however, I can imagine circumstances where in a short interlude or recitative these elements should be visible in all players’ parts, also the silent ones, e.g. because the next flow will start attacca, and everyone needs to stay alert. It depends.
It could be a flow’s property to either show a simple ‘tacet’, or show all inner structure.
In that case, a cue in the “tacet” part would be a good idea, and the “tacet” multirest will be broken anyway by the cue.
Just to argue the opposite point, imagine for a minute that there’s a movement with a G.P. mid way through. In this instance the G.P. is crucial information for anyone who’s tacet - it massively reduces the possibility of them interpreting the first downbeat (after the pause) as the downbeat of the next movement.
I think it’s quite a good idea for Dorico to ignore a fermata in the final bar of a flow if it would otherwise show ‘tacet al fine’. I’ll make a note of this.
Yes, agreed. The ideal would be for you to actually unassign that player from the flow, but keep that flow assigned to the layout, which would then trigger Dorico to create a proper tacet for that flow in the part. That’s on the list to be done as soon as we can manage it.
@dspreadbury do you have a result for this yet? Very much hoping there’s a way for Dorico to manage this now. Thanks!
It now works exactly as Daniel said: unassign the player from the flow.