I’m in the process of making max. 1 minute long compositions which are played by the carillon (Glockenspiel in German, ) at the half and full hours. I’m using a piano keyboard for composing.
With 38 bells in the carillon, I would like to limit the piano keys to those which have a bell attached so as to avoid using ‘non-functional’ keys. Is that possible?
Thanks for your help.
Maarten Siebel
What are the available pitches? If it is a more or less diatonic scale, you might misuse the harp pedaling feature for your purpose as a proofreading means (although probably with some caveats).
I think you will have to manage this manually (ie- in your brain) for the time being. Hopefully in the next major release we will be able to create custom instruments and define ranges/scales etc. (NB: this has not been promised, I’m just hoping out loud) at which point you’d be able to set up a custom carillon. Until then I think just using piano and remembering your available pitches is the way to go.
Thank you ‘Romanos401’ for sharing your thoughts. You may be right that brains are the ones to use rather than a conditioned keyboard. Nevertheless I would be happy to hear about future other options.
Regards Maarten
Thanks Alexander for your support. The scale is: G3, C4, Cis4, D4, Dis4, etc. all the way to D7.
Wouldn’t have problems with misusing a harp pedaling feature but didn’t see anything about what you may have referred to (the harp’s tone range is similar to that for the piano). Would you mind explaining how I can find out if this could be a way out?
I also tried the Glockenspiel. That’s really what I had in mind but in this case it’s just too limited (20 keys).
Hoping to hear.
Thx. Maarten
In other programs, I would write a plugin script that would color invalid notes a different color. Perhaps such a thing is possible within Dorico’s plugin framework?
So, @Maarten1, no notes between G3 and C4?
I think you’d need someone from the Dorico team to program a special instrument, since we “mere mortals” cannot simply create them… for now, anyway. The problem with carillons, as far as I know, is that every instrument is slightly unique, so a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.
What you can do is write the music, then Select All, then Edit > Filter > Notes by Pitch… In the dialog box, you can enter the forbidden pitches, all at once even, and click Select. Then, color any selected notes red. It’s a manual workaround and it may take a little time to set up the filter, but it should work!
