Direct symbols as catchwords equivalent

[pmc.galoubet]

A score feature going back to Medieval Times, quite popular in renaissance, and baroque times, and not even totally out of fashion in moder times, is the use of the direct symbols (guidon in French) to indicate the first note on the current staff after a break (system or frame). I have not been able to find any reference to this, either in the Dorico Help, or on the Dorico Forum, though I might have failed in my research (or should have I also tried the Dorico Blog?). I am pretty sure that Finale doesn’t have it, but I do not know about Sibelius, which I never used.

I am interested in knowing this is something that has been considered. I have experimented with a simulation of it, and I am attaching a short project demonstrating it. This can in no case be regarded as a prototype of implementation, at best a sketch to be able to see how it might look in the printed page. The “tricks” I have used are clumsy, fragile and redundant, and the use of it as a workaround would horribly inefficient (By the way, in topics that demonstrate “tricks” as workaround for something that cannot be currently achieved otherwise, they seem to be sometimes thought of as “Fighting” Dorico, or “Trying to be smarter than” Dorico, and I do not see things that way: there is a lot of leeway in Dorico to allow such workarounds, and their use is more Dorico cooperating than anything else). A true implement implementation would of course require very little work from the user.
Noël-4-IT.dorico (997.1 KB)
I am also attaching a small doricolib that creates a so-called notehead to be used as the direct symbol. I say so-called, because a true notehead has a duration attribute, while a direct only has pitch. That is also something that could be different in a true implementation.
directs.zip (1.8 KB)

[benwiggy]

Nice! So you’ve used gracenotes before the barline, with the notehead changed to look like a custodes.

I did try using Jazz Ornaments, as they apply to the right hand side of a note… with partial success.

@pmc.galoubet

In topics that demonstrate “tricks” as workaround for something that cannot be currently achieved otherwise, they seem to be sometimes thought of as “Fighting” Dorico,

I think that criticism is usually made when Dorico can actually do what they want, but they are trying to do it by a more complicated way, familiar from other software.

There are lots of very inventive methods proposed by users here, which is great!

[pmc.galoubet]

@Christian_R helped a lot for delicate cases with this:

@Christian_R

Hi everybody,
I think I just found a solution (workaround) to the problem (using grace notes simultaneously before AND after barline in different players). It doesn’t need to invoke hidden tuplets. It uses just “duplicates” and “hidden note heads and stems”. (Eventually suppress playback for the hidden elements and tweaking in key editor is desired, if right playback is needed.)

[PjotrB]

@benwiggy

a custodes

Forgive my pedantry — that’s the plural form. If only for the sake of searchability, allow me to mention that the Latin singular is custos.

[benwiggy]

Yes, of course. And at least we know that someone is keeping an eye on the custodes.

“Juvenal.”
“Yes, it is childish, isn’t it?”