Several of my customers ask for cue notes written in the transposition of the respective source instrument. Although personally I prefer to write them in the transposition of the target instrument (as Dorico does) I have to find a way to achieve this. Is this possible in Dorico?
You might be able to add an instrument to your player that is the same transposition as the cueād one, and then insert your cue into that instrument? You may need to do some editing of Instrument Changes etc in the Layout.
Does this work? Or even make sense?
Frankly, your customer is stupidā¦ A cue is
- something you hope to hear occurring, in the context of what youāre playing yourself, so that you can fit your entry correctly, which may include getting the right pitch as youād play/sing it on your own instrument/voice;
- an optional fragment of music you might be required to fill in in the absence of someone else.
In either case, the transposition should match the playerās, not the original instrument.
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I probably wouldnāt have these customers yet, telling them that they are stupid 
Actually this is a (strong) tradition in classical music engraving, and you find cue notes with the transposition of the source instruments at Schott, Breitkopf and others. And not to forget, it is only applied to transposing target instruments, assuming that players of transposing instruments can read any transposition (which often is true).
One, maybe the only advantage is to have less ledger lines and no need for octave lines.
I think thereās an option to view cues in concert or transposing pitch, but not in the transposition of another instrument
Thereās no option to show cues in the transposition of the source instrument. You would need to employ a workaround of some kind, for example creating one or more extra players where you can place the material that needs to be cued and tranpsose the music in the source staff so that it appears in the desired staff position in the destination instrument. You can override the cue label to be whatever you need it to be, so you donāt need the same number of extra cue players as you need to create cues from.
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Out of curiosity, how are the differing key signatures and accidentals handled in the case of non transposing cues in traditional engraving?
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Only by the appropriate accidentals, not by additional key signatures.
Just to make clear: I donāt like this kind of cue notes, I was only asking because several publishers (e.g. Carus, Schott, Breitkopf) are using them.
Name one less than a hundred years old.
I asked for this not because I like it but because there is the demand of several major publishers I am working for. You can check out e.g. any of the current Carus orchestral editions; cue notes in transposing instruments use the transposition of the source instruments. Same is true for all Schott and Breitkopf works I did in the past, definitely less than hundred years old
But certainly you donāt have to believe me.
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Does that mean that the cues show the exact same notes as the original instrument part? I donāt know why it would be useful to the reader but I easily see why it is convenient for the editor, as it would minimize the risk of mistakes in the spellingā¦ Except all new accidentals (according to the transposition of the instrument the cue is written in) must be added locally 
Yes, exactly, together with a text stating the respective transposition. But again, only in transposing instruments. It has so many disadvantages that usually I try to convince the customers to use always the transposition of the target instrument. Since Dorico only does this it will help me to convince them, in case they want use Dorico in future projects.
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I am re-engraving Sextet MĆstico by Villa-Lobos in order to get better/faster at Dorico. My source score is from 1957. The Alto Sax part contains an Oboe cuein concert pitch. I would like to āuntransposeā the cue. I donāt care what is standard today or what was standard yesterday, I just want to write exactly what was written. If I have to add and hide a new instrument, so be it, but if anyone has a better/cleaner workaround, please share. @Joachim_Linckelmann @dspreadbury
Welcome to the forum, @Riles. Thereās no easy way to un-transpose a cue so that it appears in concert pitch in a transposed layout.
I guess you could add a second, non-transposing instrument to the player holding the alto sax, and then add the cue to the non-transposing instrument in galley view. This would then cause an instrument change to the non-transposing instrument for the cue ā but it comes with knock-on effects like extra instrument change warning labels, potentially changes of clef and key signatures, etc.
The other option would be to add a scratch staff and copy and paste the material to be cued there, then transpose that material so that it counteracts the alto sax transposition, and then cue that material into the sax staff.
Perhaps somebody more ingenious than me has a better idea.
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This is my workflow for a publisher who insists on non-transposing cues. I create a scratch staff for each transposition which occurs in the score so that I can handle cues in multiple transposing instruments. Sometimes notes have to be shifted by a semitone and accidentals have to be forced or hidden depending on key signature and transposition.
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As Daniel suggested, in open key you could just add an Oboe to the Saxophone player, cue into that, and change the instrument change labels to a space. The old independent key sig workaround that used to be necessary for ālateā instrument changes a few versions ago would work here with key sigs I think. Add an Oboe to the Saxophone player. Create an independent key sig to change the key of that instrument to match whatever the Saxophone key sig is. Cue into the Oboe and Dorico wonāt draw the key sig again if it matches.
This in the score ā¦
ā¦ could then be this in the part.
(I do hate the non-transposing cue style though.)
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I donāt know any musician who likes it. Not relevant if youāre copying an existing source, or if a client requires it, but worth keeping in mind.
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Perhaps a (concert) or other such suffix could be added to the cued instrument name without unduly delegitimizing the accurate historical reproduction of the scoreā¦?
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