Sorry to keep asking questions, but I’ve had some great help from the forum and now I need some more please.
I have finally completed the complicated Brass Band score for Bohemian Rhapsody, which I’ve been working on as a Dorico-learning exercise. The published set of parts only has a short score, so a full score would be very useful.
The Solo Cornet part (4 players) had be written on two staves and condensed, and along the way I found that if there is anything entered in a voice other than Voice 1, the two staffs refuse to condense. I managed to get over this by some judicious moving of the div and tutti signposts and by manipulating systems.
However, today I added the cues from the published parts and Dorico puts these into a second voice, which results in the condensing not working and I can’t fudge it this time.
I don’t think that’s true – I just wrote a few bars for 2 flutes with some notes in a different voice, and they condensed just fine. I guess it may depend on exact usage; can you post your project file here, or a cut-down version that still demonstrates the issue?
If you’re using Dorico’s Shift+U cues, they’re not actually in a voice – they’re a separate entity. In my testing, staves with cues can still condense.
I could be missing something here, which is why it would be valuable to see your project file.
Hi,
In your Solo Cornet layout, condensing takes place only when you have created divisi - those moments where you see two staves in Galley view. The problem/limitation you are facing, is that cues cannot be condensed. Therefore, in your Solo Cornet layout you should avoid having divisi and cues on the same system (using systems brakes or using Note Spacing changes). Or, as a workaround, you could enter the cues as real notes, change them to cue size and supress playback.
Thank you Rafael. I am attaching the original hand-written published part I have been trying replicate. There are many instances of it not being “correctly” written in the Dorico way of doing things, but I didn’t want to change it.
I have spent very many hours on this project trying to find answers to problems I came across along the way, and I’ve learned such a lot, both about methods of doing things and also what is not possible. The temptation to give up and do it in Finale grew and grew (it would have been so easy for me!) but I was determined to finish it with Dorico.
The condensing feature (which Finale never had) is really powerful and useful, but in truth it was only necessary here because of the limitations of other tools. I had already discovered it wouldn’t condense when there are two voices, and now you confirm this happens with cues as well. I can get over it mostly using system breaks but in one place (Bar 130) I need to remove the cued notes and enter them as “real” notes and add a graphic whole bar rest.
I have to say you didn’t pick an easy task as a practice project! Those 4-in-one staff Solo Cornet parts were always a pain to engrave, I have to say I try to avoid it as much as possible by at least splitting up the parts into a Solo Cornet 1&2 and Solo Cornet 3&4 part. But I know you’re trying to emulate the original. I’m not very proficient in divisi or condensing but I was wondering if in this case it wouldn’t be easier to use 4 single cornet players (so no section players and no divisi), write the parts out in full on each staff (so no chords or multiple voices as well), and then create a part layout with all four players condensed into one staff. In the full score layout you could condense them into two separate staves.
But beware - this still means a lot of manual adjustments and local condensing changes, especially in the part layout. For starters you could delete all Tutti and “two” etc. markings and replace those by editing the condensing labels, as well as having to hide a lot of superfluous condensing labels. Also in parts where all four cornets play in octaves (two up two down) you might have some trouble getting that condensed in single stemmed notes without ending up with four noteheads on each note. And the cues, you’ll have to enter them as actual notes, set the size to cue notes and suppress playback (Finale style). All of these things are solvable but they’ll take a lot of work. I gave it a shot with the first 54 bars and tackled some of these things but as I said, I’m not very proficient at this part of Dorico so some things I’d have to spend a lot more time on. But perhaps this is a start, and others can tell you if this is a valid approach to begin with.
Having said all that - if you’re contemplating going back to Finale, pleaso don’t do that over the troubles you encounter with condensing four Solo Cornets into one - I’d say that’s a bit of an advanced area of Dorico and while the condensing feature in general is very powerful, it’s not really designed to do this particular type of work. So you’ll run into all kinds of challenges that might prevent you from getting used to Dorico and make use of its many advantages.
I deliberately wanted to do a complicated piece and, as our MD had asked me if I could do a full score of it, I chose Bohemian Rhapsody.
While doing this project I discovered quite a few limitations of Dorico. Finale had many too, so that’s not a criticism, it’s to be expected. Once you’re used to doing the basics, the real fun in both Finale and Dorico, is finding workarounds and fudges to achieve what you want.
Thanks for the ideas on the 4 cornets. I am regularly asked to produce a full score or to reprint parts when the music is too cramped or the solo cornets can’t work out who plays what, so I’m sure I will soon have another opportunity to put your thoughts into practice! For now I’m going to do some arranging of Chinese pop music I discovered in Hong Kong over Christmas and then I have to do some work for full symphony orchestra, so that will be a Dorico learning-exercise too!!
