Cross to stave - ornaments & playing techniques

Dorico
#1

Possible request?

Might you be able to make ornaments and playing techniques move when using “cross to stave”? For example, trills, mordants, M.S./M.D. etc? Either when the associated note is moved or when ornament is selected and M/N keyboard shortcut is pressed?

I see that you can delete a note and the corresponding ornament/playing technique is not deleted as well so I guess they are tied to a stave position, rather than to a note.

Of course, I can get around this in Engrave mode but it seems they should move.

All in good time, of course…

#2

Some of these items are staff-attached rather than voice-attached, and unlike notes they can’t be crossed to other staves. In general I’d advise adding these items on the staff on which you intend them to appear, rather than adding them on another and then crossing them.

#3

Thank you. I can see how MS/MD might be argued as staff attached. However, trills and other ornaments – are they not voice specific??

Wanting to understand Dorico better, can you help me see the benefit of making voice specific items (trills, mordent…) attached to a staff? Not going to die in a ditch but I do want to understand the design philosophy so that I can work faster.

#4

Trills and ornaments are indeed voice-attached, but that doesn’t mean that they can have their staff overridden in the same way that a note can. Only a handful of things can really refer to different staves – e.g. slurs, glissando lines, etc. – so even voice-attached things are generally associated only with the staff on which they were created.

If you’re looking for efficiency, then I think the rule of thumb is that you should move the caret onto or make a selection on the staff on which you want the item to appear, then create it there. You should also find that you can move an item to the staff above or below with Alt+N and Alt+M (as distinct from just N or M on their own, which applies only to notes).