I’ve written mostly for classical guitar, so I’m not completely familiar with how things work when writing for an orchestra. Therefore I’m wondering if such things as ‘nat.’ and ‘vib.’ for example are written into the score as an instruction for the live orchestra, or if they are there just to make Dorico play it back correctly? Maybe if they can’t be hidden they are supposed to be there?
An option could be some sort of " Score Checklist for Dummies".
These are called Playing Techniques and they can be hidden (from the properties panel). And, as every PT, is up to you what you want that your players see and do (both as live musicians or VST) and deciding what can be hidden (if only for VST playback)
Unrelated to the technical Dorico way, nat. or ord. are indeed used to cancel certain playing techniques, especially when there’s no other ‘canonical’ cancellation. For example, in the real world pizz. is not canceled by either of those but by arco.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered vib. on its own without being accompanied by poco or molto. Even when cancelling non vib. it would help to specify vib. ord. or something like that.
I actually have a pizz section. So then I should replace the nat with arco. I hope Dorico will understand it, haven’t got time to try this at the moment.
In Dorico version 1.0.0, you HAD to cancel pizz. with ord. to get the playback right—arco didn’t work. They fixed that pretty quickly though so yes, the software will understand it. Similarly, the various brass mutes and stopped horn are canceled by the PT open.
For me it’s all based on context as to what I’m doing with the playing technique - whether or not I am intending it as a direction for live players or only something to cheat the best playback which might otherwise be obvious to a player.
Adding another point specific to strings, when cancelling pizz yes, you would use arco to mean return to bowing. However, there still is a reason you might use nat or ord to cancel other things for live string players, and that is usually different techniques with the bow placement. For example you have marked in your score sul pont, you wouldn’t actually cancel this with arco because arco really just means using the bow (and sul pont is using the bow). Instead you would use nat, ord, or sometimes pos. ord / p.o. for posizione ordinario. I just use ord. Either way is necessary for both players and playback to return to a normal style of bowing.
Vib. I often add in the score for playback only and hide it, because some virtual instruments need that extra nudge and reminder, and it tends to produce a more human playback to me. However, I would keep vib. or con vib. in the score to clarify to the player it is allowed, in particular after a marking such as senza vib.
Finally I prefer Ord. to nat. but technically both work as I have ord. connected to natural for playback. In all the scores I have studied I don’t see nat. nearly as often, and as a native US english speaker I think “nat” sounds kind of ugly haha. But either one works. For harp and a few instruments I also use Norm. for Normale to cancel extended techniques but that’s mainly because they are more accustomed to seeing that than Ord. from my experience.
Is this merely for personal enjoyment of your own music via playback? Or do you intend to have it performed by an actual string section at some point?
With the former, you can basically do whatever works best. But if the latter is the case, I would urge you to take some time for very serious study of how string writing works, because otherwise you will be off to a really bad start with these players (basically unrecoverable). Not only will it eat up large parts of the rehearsal time, but the whole string section will lose confidence in your music.
I do have thought about what if my music will be rejected just because someone thinks that “I refuse to play his music since he obviously doesn’t understand my needs as a violin player!” Or other instruments for that matter. Even if my music would be “the best music ever heard”. It isn’t for sure, but just to even more clarify what I mean.
I think that is generally true, but I also know that section leaders will also often see certain composer’s technical directions as “suggestive” and translate the spirit of the composer’s intention into what makes sense for their section, regardless. For this reason I find it’s almost better for a composer to not over-prescribe especially if they don’t know more about how an instrument works – bow directions and double stops for example. It’s almost more of a waste of time for the composer to write in such directions if they are all misinformed and/or physically impossible. The section leader will decide whether or not something should be performed on a down or upbow, and perhaps whether or not two notes should be divided by the section.
But yes, writing in the essential playing directions will avoid confusion during rehearsal time for sure. As a string player myself I feel confident writing for strings, and I’ve played percussion and noodled on clarinet so I feel generally ok with perc & winds, but I always break a sweat writing for brass – I have studied them in various orchestration books but always worry if what I’m writing is crazy or not and the trombonists will all laugh at me