I need mainly pointers: links to things I can read or videos that can help me get over a hump.
The score I’m working on is more-or-less typical of mid-20th-century avant-garde music. It has a part for a large single-performer percussion array. All I had when I wrote it (in 1966) was 14-staff score paper. I managed somehow, and my percussionist didn’t complain. I could duplicate that and save some trouble, but I’d rather learn to do this right.
I want to break this part up into multiple staves:
o Normal treble staff on top for pitched percussion (marimba, vibraphone, etc.)
Below that I’d like separate groups for pitchless instruments by type:
3-line (dead cowbells)
3-line (etc. …)
1-line (suspended cymbals)
3-line …
4-line (other stuff)
The more I look at it, the more I’m thinking I could group it even more logically, but the idea would be the same.
While this sounds complicated, I’m sure I’m not the first person to do this.
I need reassurance that I’m on the right track, and I could use basic instruction about how to go about defining this in Setup mode. I’ve been playing with it and not getting what I want. I’m also very new to Dorico.
I never mastered percussion writing in my student days. I could write an essay about why, but I’ll spare you.
Fewer instruments, but to show you 3 different approaches.
Jesper
Player 1: Xylo + 1 percussion kit with both cowbells, cymbal, and toms. The cowbells and toms are grouped in the percussion editor. (The kits here only have a single space between the staff lines, could be 2 like the next ex)
Player 2: Xylo + a percussion kit with cowbells, a cymbal, and a percussion kit with toms. (can’t cross staff between percussion kits and other staffs )
Player 3: Xylo + a percussion kit with only a single cowbell, a cymbal, and a single tom, but instead using percussion playing techniques to notate the 3 instruments on/above/below the staff line. Takes less space.
Thank you for these starter links. I’m about halfway through watching the longer video tutorial and will finish it, maybe tomorrow. My head is in a fog with information overload, but I now know enough to have the general idea.
Also, thank you for the links to the manual. Since I’m so new to Dorico, this is the first I’ve become aware that there is a manual, and I’m very glad to see it’s Web based rather than a PDF. (Compare Apple’s documentation for Logic Pro, which is about 1500 pages of PDF files — useful, but Web pages are much easier to search and sort through.)
In the future I’ll know to at least try to consult the manual first.
At my age I don’t anticipate trying to remedy my lack of knowledge about percussion writing, as much as I’d like to know more. I’m mainly interested in learning to use Dorico to notate a piece of music I wrote long ago.
However, I did scroll through the Web materials and see there are many video demos. It would be very easy for me to chase down that rabbit hole.
I appreciate that you took the trouble to respond. That link will of course remain in the record of this post, so I can look at it more closely once I’m over the hump if I can make time for it.
Yes, those examples are visually very much like what I have in mind, bracketing and stemming together a wide variety of instruments, both pitched and unpitched.
I’m elated to know that what I want to do is possible, though in the case I’m working on it might take some fiddling with it to get it right. At least I’m off in the right direction now.
I’ve replied individually to people who responded on this thread. I now have enough information that I can make some serious headway, though I’ll doubtless have some questions along the way.
Thank you to everyone who took the trouble to respond.
In all likelihood, my problem will be one of determining how I want to group things. In the end, there is one percussion player for a truckload of instruments. I’ve been staring at my chart and the key for what I did many long years ago and thinking I want to reorganize them in this score.
Hi @Lynn_Newton, the good news are that in Dorico you can change your mind at any moment, and adapt the setup as needed also in a later stage of the project.
For example, if you added some instruments into a kit, but you later decide to have one of them outside the kit, you can use the command Remove Instrument from Kit (as well as Add existing Instrument from Player), and once they are removed from the kit, you can also drag them to a different player. A very elegant, non linear and flexible system:
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