Dorico biased exclusively towards Classical Music?

Dorico
1

Whilst I understand many musicians have different requirements from their software, I am rather disappointed that Dorico is considerably biased (exclusively) towards typesetting classical music. Even in Dorico’s own ‘Higher-Level Concepts’ it refers to ‘Dorico is designed to conform more closely to how music is performed in the real world …” and then gives examples of ‘A double choir or and orchestra plus off stage chamber ensemble’. This may be the ‘real world’ to some, but to many it most certainly is not. The real world could be in a classroom, or in the pit orchestra of a west end show.

The classical bias is clearly evident throughout the conception and design of the program. Whilst, I understand the programmers and designers needed to start somewhere, in the design and conception of Dorico, how can omitting basic features for such a huge proportion of potential customers be justified?
I draw attention to the wonderful choice we have of being able to select from 8 different fermatas yet there are no ‘doits’ nor any other specific jazz articulations. Orchestral drum music can just about cope with being notated on one line, but makes kit playing a complete nonsense with what we have at present. Likewise, it is disappointing that Chord Symbols were not included in v1 and I do not accept that this is not a priority to have in a typesetting program but a key requirement. Please point out those specific jazz relevant features included in this release?

As a long term Sibelius user – If I recall correctly we needed to get to version 4 before we were given those kind of articulations. Before you start to counter my argument by saying it’s a different product by a different company, I remind you and those reading this, that it has been designed and programmed, if press reports are accurate, by exactly the same people. In those dark years I sincerely felt that jazz and pop musicians were regarded somewhat as second class musicians and therefore did not warrant the same importance of our needs. I sincerely hope history will not repeat itself with Dorico but it seems it’s off to a very good start in doing just that.

I suggest that you ask the people of this forum what they regard as important features or are we to be force fed whatever you deem we are worthy of having?

At the moment I have to put Dorico to one side as it is unusable whilst I wait for those future updates that include features that I can actually use and that are other than classical music related.

2

Okay there’s several things to unpack in here. Let me preface this by saying that I am, currently at least, an unapologetic Dorico fan. I don’t think they deserve any of the criticism that I’ve seen (which will be elaborated on below) and I’m very happy with the state of the program so far and how everything has been going. Feel free to discount everything I say if that’s too bright and happy for you. I’m just going to address things you’ve said in order:

“[…] ‘A double choir or and orchestra plus off stage chamber ensemble’. This may be the ‘real world’ to some, but to many it most certainly is not. The real world could be in a classroom, or in the pit orchestra of a west end show.”

Dorico actually includes features (the power of flows and layouts primarily) which make it more useful in a classroom and in a pit orchestra than anything else I’ve seen. If you have more specific things in mind that it cannot do that would be one thing but the ease in which you can place snippets of music anywhere on a page, incorporated with graphics and text, is fantastic for classrooms. As for pit music (and any multi-movement works), being able to include it all in one project is awesome. Again, there are use-cases where Dorico is helpless right now but those don’t seem to be it as far as I can tell.

“I draw attention to the wonderful choice we have of being able to select from 8 different fermatas yet there are no ‘doits’ nor any other specific jazz articulations. Orchestral drum music can just about cope with being notated on one line, but makes kit playing a complete nonsense with what we have at present. Likewise, it is disappointing that Chord Symbols were not included in v1 and I do not accept that this is not a priority to have in a typesetting program but a key requirement. Please point out those specific jazz relevant features included in this release?”

There’s two things to this:

  1. Choosing a jazz focus over a classical focus would have upset just as many people. They weren’t able to get both done at this point in their timeline, clearly, so they had to choose one or the other. It could have been for any number of reasons but I don’t see why it matters… again, SOMEONE would have been upset regardless. The fact that Sibelius 1.0 didn’t ship with jazz notation seems irrelevant to me.
  2. Did you buy Dorico under the assumption that it COULD do jazz notation and chord symbols? To be fair, since this was a general release, people may realistically have bought it without doing more research than reading the product page, in which case they could have missed details, but the team have repeatedly been as clear as possible about the fact that not everything will be included from the start. They chose what features they could have ready in time and shipped those.

Setting ALL of that aside, in my opinion it really does boil down to this:

  1. Again, they’ve been as clear as possible about the fact that not everything will be in 1.0. More so than I would generally expect from a product team, really.

  2. They could have chosen to delay the release, and there are arguments to be made for doing that. But again, with the clear communication that they’ve provided, I see it as nothing but a good thing that those of us who have been waiting so long got to dive into it sooner rather than later.

  3. Continuing that, a release date and release features are HEAVILY arbitrary, unless you believe that EVERY conceivable feature should be included in a 1.0 release. If you don’t believe that then we’re actually arguing about, again, an arbitrary point at which it’s considered “enough”. And that definition will vary from person to person, mostly based on the things that THEY want.

  4. Finale, as an example (since that’s what I’ve used for so long), has been out for DECADES… and while I’ll admit that it has a LOT of features and you can break it enough to do whatever you want eventually if it’s not included, there are still features which it’s missing, it runs exactly like you’d expect software from the 90s to run, it has crashed on me more times than I can count, and many features that ARE implemented are done so badly that they’re not really usable. My friend who uses Sibelius has many similarly grievous complaints. That’s the number one reason why we, at least, are so excited about a product which looks like it can deliver on its promises.

I’m sorry Dorico doesn’t do everything that you’d like right now. If you feel cheated because you didn’t know that going into the purchase, I’m especially sorry for that. But I’m quite confident that the Dorico team will deliver everything that you want as quickly as they can do it, with quality in mind.

3

Thank you for your comments with regard to my post, in which you intimate that flows and layouts would make it more useful than anything else you have seen. Of course layouts can be created and modified to suit a user’s particular need, I stand by my initial standpoint that it is biased and I thank you for raising this particular facet of the program.

When it comes to Templates (which can be adapted I know), I wonder how Steinberg will explain that they included 6 different types of Orchestral templates but, it seems, did not feel that the inclusion of ‘Big Band’ or ‘Jazz combo’ to be a reasonable or valid inclusion.

I do not, and have never suggested that jazz should have priority over the classical domain. Far from it, I only wish for an even playing field for all genres - within reason. I don’t think a Big Band template would have been too much of an ask. It highlights, once again, the classical focus or did they simply forget?

I am pleased for you that the absence of jazz notation is irrelevant to you. It may be considerably relative to some people more so than Baroque ornaments are to others.

I did read the specification regarding the omission of Chord Symbols in the initial release but was very disappointed to read (in this forum) Daniel saying that this would not be included in the next update.

I feel confident that Dorico will be feature rich in the fullness of time, but I do question that as it has taken 4 years to bring us version 1.0. As the initial list wasn’t written on the back of a cigarette pack (I presume), I would have hoped that there would have been time to discuss options and offer something for everybody – no matter how small. To confirm that they accept jazz as a valid genre by including jazz articulations would not have prompted my original post.

I am pleased, you are pleased with the features in this release but I hope you can understand it is difficult for some of us to accept being regarded as a mere afterthought, or ignored completely especially when it comes to Templates. Let us both take time to see what comes out in forthcoming updates, to see if I am correct - or wrong.

I would be seriously delighted to be proven wrong. Time will tell.

Regards

4

It seems to me you answered your own question.

If it took Sibelius four versions to implement jazz features to your satisfaction, why do you expect version 1.0 of Dorico (which you said had to start somewhere) to start there?

I think that is what this Forum has helped and is helping to accomplish.

I doubt even classical musicians are completely satisfied with Dorico’s current, initial implementation. And I see a lot of people pushing for features they feel strongly about–as they are entitled to do. I, too, would like to see chords implemented (well) and sorely miss Drum Set and other percussion features, not to mention pitch-before-duration entry which helps composers more than transcribers.

By all means, make suggestions for features you need for your work, but whining about bias–as if the programmers are intentionally offering you a personal affront–is unhelpful.

Questioning the motivation of those developing or marketing the software does no one any good.

5

I’m sorry Derrek, who exactly are you; the Dorico thought police?

Anyone is allowed to have their own opinion and where does it say that a member of the public cannot ask searching questions and even dare I say, complain about a product they have legally purchased?

This does not give you right to respond in an aggressive and ‘troll’ like manner just because you don’t happen to agree with me. I have been courteous throughout my correspondence and intend to remain so.

It is unfortunate that you are unable to understand my post. I thought I was quite clear and logical.

Kind Regards

6

I might not understand the subtleties in english, but I do not understand how Derrek’s answer can be considered as “troll”. We have been reading this forum since day one and gathered a lot of information here, as well as transmitted many features or options we all feel are still missing, and Dorico’s team is extremely accurate, speedy and responsive. Your claim about bias is unfair. Because even for classical music, everything is not ready. You cannot engrave an opera or a concerto, because of the bracketing of the soloists, for instance. But we already know that this will be (well) implemented in future releases.
We know that drum scoring, chords and many other things are coming, and we are confident that it will work the way it should. Yet releasing Dorico three weeks ago has given us the opportunity to start earlier the learning curve, and to share with Dorico’s team what we feel we need for the next releases. I think that is all Derrek meant.

7

@Clackett from your perspective the software appears biased, and that’s an opinion to which you have a right. In my own view I don’t see the lack of jazz articulations, drum maps, and chords in the first release as evidence of anything but the fact that they wanted to get the software on the market now, for better or worse.

The fact that the features would be omitted is discussed in Daniel Spreadbuy’s development diary and discussed ad infinitum here, before and after the release.

As you said, time will tell how the program matures.

Also, (speaking in my moderator role) no one is denying you a right to state your opinion, and I don’t see the response you referred to as trollish or personally insulting.

If you feel you’ve been trolled, please report the post, and one of the moderators will address the issue.

[edit: MarcLarcher posted while I was writing.]

8

The way I read your post, a summary would be “I’m only interested in jazz, and everything that I personally want should have been given priority over everything else”.

That point of view is “quite clear and logical”, but not necessarily realistic!

If you think four years seems an excessive amount of time to develop something like Dorico, I guess you have never done any professional software development. I started working as a programmer long before personal computers had even been invented, and four years doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to me for what the Dorico team has achieved so far. For example, compare what is in Dorico 1.0 with the number of new features that have appeared in Sibelius or Finale in the last four years, to see how much progress Avid and MakeMusic have been making compared with Steinberg.

They may not be interesting to you personally, but Dorico already has a long list of features that are not in any other commercial notation software package.

9

I’ll add to this discussion…

While Jazz is important, the Dorico team has already expressed that they recognize it, the notation needs of jazz musicians do not by most means push the envelope of music engraving. I have seen a lot of charts in my days, both jazz and “classical”. I have never seen a jazz chart with a nested tuplet (a triplet within a triplet, within a triplet). While we could argue back and forth about the musical relevance of nested tuplets, the fact remains is that the “classical” side of music does push the needs of engraving further. As such, I would expect any team to tackle the harder aspects of music engraving first, not second.

This is why I believe Encore never succeeded. Encore was great at doing easy things, like jazz charts, basic melodies, etc. However, its competition Finale could do SO MUCH MORE. Encore was later abandoned because it couldn’t compete, and from what I guess became unprofitable.

I believe Dorico is doing it correctly. They have tackled some of the hardest concepts in music engraving up front. They have allowed you to create music without a time signature, and then add bar lines in at a later point. You could easily create a work sheet for the classroom having students fill in the bar lines to prove they understand meter and note values. Jazz also relies on chord symbols. Dorico doesn’t have that capability yet. And it’s been (in my opinion) very well documented. I could see that offering a jazz template would lead people to believe that Dorico handled all facets of jazz music. Imagine the outrage when people find a jazz template and can’t find how to do chords. And let’s be fair… Dorico still doesn’t 100% serve the needs of classical musicians either. You can’t do piano fingerings. However, you can get by with certain work arounds, and accomplish about 90% of what is needed. However, all but 1 person worked on Sibelius, so the team is very aware of what is important. And in due corse, we will have a program that does it all.

I have been following Dorico development since the team was fired from Avid. I knew up front that Dorico would be lacking some necessary things (even for classical musicians). I am a percussion writer and arranger, mostly. I have done work on many, many percussion publications. And to be quite honest, Dorico’s ability to handle percussion notation is pretty poor at the moment. However, I knew that going in. And I wish it was different because there is a drum set book in the works at the moment, that I was asked to help engrave. I would love to do it in Dorico, but cannot. With this in mind, I am backing Dorico because I know that the developers are going to make it great. It took Finale several years (almost 30) to get to its place, and took Sibelius almost 20 years. To expect Dorico to do it in 4 years is quite unrealistic in my mind. With that said, I believe in 6 years of development Dorico will put those other 2 programs to shame (it already does in so many areas). For me, I believed that it was incredibly important to support the future of this program by getting in at the ground level. I can already see great things in my work flow while using Dorico that will save me hours of work compared to the other 2 programs.

And to your argument… “Likewise, it is disappointing that Chord Symbols were not included in v1 and I do not accept that this is not a priority to have in a typesetting program but a key requirement. Please point out those specific jazz relevant features included in this release?” Key requirement?!?!?!?! In my 23+ years of doing engraving work, I have NEVER used chord symbols. Let me repeat… NEVER! To say it is a requirement, is to only look at what YOU use the program for. I could make the argument that percussion stickings is a KEY REQUIREMENT, since 90% of what I have done requires percussion stickings. But I will defer to what Daniel has said in the past (paraphrased because of my poor memory)… “The world of music engraving is hugely broad, and the needs of musicians vary greatly.” I am sure someone out there, somewhere, is frustrated that Dorico doesn’t handle music written on a staff with no staff lines.

As far as asking the forum for what is important, and relying on the people of this forum to help suggest what is important, the team already does this. However, the team also needs to attack problems in a logical order. If they only listened to this forum, we would have a program that integrated seamlessly with Cubase. However, the trade off might have been not having good looking notation. Or not having the ability to have open meter. I have read many posts from those wanting chords saying “take your time and do it right, no need to rush something and get it wrong.” Daniel has expressed that they have ideas, and that when it is fully realized it will be quite good.

I am sorry that you somehow feel slighted by Dorico, and its developers. I know in time that Dorico will handle your needs, much like mine. And from my guess, probably within a years time. Just know that the developers are working hard to ensure that they give you a product that works and works well. Unfortunately, we just have to wait.

Robby

10

Gentlemen,

Thank you for adding to this debate although blind support for a product by (i) attempting to twist my words …

Mr Tuley,
The way I read your post, a summary would be “I’m only interested in jazz, and everything that I personally want should have been given priority over everything else”.

Erm. Excuse me I said nothing of the sort. I clearly stated….
I do not, and have never suggested that jazz should have priority over the classical domain. Far from it, I only wish for an even playing field for all genres.

-or-
(ii) Defend a product that had it been anything else, customers would be flocking at the store demanding a refund or at the very least a discount.

SteveInChicago
“but the fact that they wanted to get the software on the market now, for better or worse…”

Accepting that is perfectly okay for any company to produce a product and then release it (and expect customers to pay the full price) with known deficiencies. If were anything else but software, any reasonable person would be seriously questioning the companies trading morals…

(iii)
Spurious and irrelevant information to support one’s position.

Mr Poole.
I have NEVER used chord symbols. Let me repeat… NEVER! To say it is a requirement, is to only look at what YOU use the program for. I could make the argument that percussion stickings is a KEY REQUIREMENT, since 90% of what I have done requires percussion stickings.

I cannot see to what you are alluding to with such a statement. I have never suggested that the features I have referred to in my previous post were for my own use, I would question however the amount of users that would vote for Percussion Sticking in preference for the ability to enter Chords.

To summarise.
I would like features for Dorico to be developed and released based upon demand and these features be supportive of all types of music and not at the detriment of any genre and not developed because one particular genre is favoured over another. As I stated before, I would like a flat playing field - for all. I have supported Dorico by purchasing the software at the full retail price. I have not requested a refund or even a discount but this does not mean that Dorico should be exempt from any and all criticism. By not holding a company to account that could result in a company being arrogant and dismissive of its customers needs. Some could say this has already happened to companies such as Microsoft and Apple.

11

It’s just that your protestations are premature.

12

My point was that you said “chords are a key requirement.” I have never used chord symbols, so there’s a good chance it is not a “key requirement.” Note input is a key requirement.

Forgive me for assuming you used chord symbols. I deduced from your frustration with the lack of jazz support and chord symbols that you used them. I have many friends that would require certain aspects from Dorico that are not quite implemented. With that in mind, you wouldn’t find me arguing for something that I don’t use. Based on my thoughts, I did assume that you used chords. Once again, forgive me for assuming such.

I can understand if you believe heavily chords are important. I could understand your frustration about their absence, if it wasn’t explained what was going to be included in the initial release. Search chords on the forum, you will see many discussions about it. The team is well aware of this and will get to it, and implement it appropriately when they have it working to a high standard. Trust that.

I don’t believe anyone is upset with you stating the idea that Dorico is all but useless to you. We all understand that. It is somewhat useless to me, in the majority of my work. But to make claims that the team isn’t listening to its customers. Or to make claims saying that the team is just doing whatever they want, and ignoring their customers, is quite contrary to the truth. All of this comes across like you are taking Steinberg’s decisions on how to implement key features as a personal attack against you, and other jazz musicians. Anyone who has been following the “Making Notes” blog, or this forum since it was a pre-release forum has been in contact with Daniel and able to hear from the horses mouth a very transparent behind the scenes discussion about what is happening, and the progress. If you didn’t mean to come across like you believe this as a personal attack, please forgive myself as well as the others who read it as such. I have had my share of disagreements with Daniel years and years ago in the Sibelius forums. I learned that Daniel is being as honest and transparent as possible. As such, I have a huge respect for what the team and Daniel are doing. Like many others on this forum.

I trust in the team. And maybe you are correct, I might trust them a little too blindly. But to the promises made to date, and the adherence to those promises, along with the frank and open discussions Daniel, Paul, András, and Ben have had, lead to me trust them.

Robby

**** Edit *****

I don’t think Daniel is a horse.

13

Sorry, that is “twisting my words.”

For the avoidance of doubt, Dorico version 1.0 is completely useless to me as a replacement for the many different notation packages I currently use. My interest in chord symbols, drum kit percussion, and jazz articulations is zilch, but Dorico can’t even replace free open source software like MuseScore for me until it can handle some basic “classical” notations like

  • Arpeggio lines
  • Piano pedal marks
  • first/second time ending lines for repeats
  • Arbitrary text input with automatic collision avoidance
  • More formatting options for instrument names
  • Figured bass notation
  • etc, etc, etc…

But I’m prepared to take it on trust that all of those things will appear eventually - and given what has been produced so far, I don’t expect to be waiting another four years to get all of them.

(Note: if you read this post carefully, there is no mention whatever of playback - and that wasn’t an accidental omission!)

14

I will just step in here to say that, in the fullness of time, we absolutely want Dorico to become the tool of choice for musicians working with notation in every genre of music. That includes not only jazz and pop, but also guitar, and early music, and contemporary art music, and everything in between.

As we all know, music notation is an incredibly broad and deep field, with idiomatic notations by the thousand that are specific to particular instruments, ensembles, genres, historical periods, and so on, and so on. One way to think about this is that music notation lies on a sort of bell curve, with a big bulge in the middle where all of the common practice stuff is found, and thinner parts out towards the edges, where instrument-specific notation like guitar tab, or Japanese shakuhachi notation might live, or where notation of a specific historical period might live, like mensural music of the early Renaissance, or frame notation for aleatorics as used by Lutoslawski, and so on. None of those notations is intrinsically more or less valuable or valid than any of the others in terms of its role in communicating musical thought.

But we do have to try and develop Dorico with a view to adding features in something like the order that will maximise our return on investment. That’s why Dorico’s feature set lies pretty squarely in the middle of that bell curve, because practically every piece of music, whatever its idiom, instrumentation, genre, or notational convention, needs staves, and clefs, and notes, and beams, and accidentals, and articulations, and slurs, and ties, and barlines, and dynamics, and tempo indications, and so on, and so on. If we had prioritised adding chord symbols or jazz articulations above adding, say, beams, then Dorico would have ended up being useful to precisely nobody in its first version, because even people wanting to write jazz would not be able to do so if they couldn’t write beamed notes.

And in answer to why we have eight types of fermata and yet not even one jazz articulation: it’s because when we add a feature, we want to try to take the time to do it properly, so that it addresses the requirements for that functional area as completely as we reasonably can (and that is not to say that there is not more that we could do in every single area, even those that are already well-developed, because there undoubtedly is). We would rather not add jazz articulations, or chord symbols, or guitar tab, or mensural notation, at all, until we can do it properly. (Also, in the specific case of fermatas, at least as far as their notation goes, it really doesn’t take much longer to add support for eight types of fermata as it does one, as it’s more or less just a case of using a different symbol, and perhaps positioning it slightly differently. This is rarely the case, but when it happens to be the case, then we happily take the extra flexibility in return for not much extra work, and we move on.)

If you find us adding support for, say, mensural notation or Renaissance lute tablature before we add support for chord symbols or drum kit notation, then I think you will have a legitimate gripe with the way we are prioritising our development effort.

15

As someone stated so eloquently already on this forum, trying to please everyone results in an ugly camel.

I get your frustrations; I just did a small project and I was forced to use Sib because Dorico doesn’t yet do chord symbols. I was sad.

Good things come to those who wait. If Steinberg hadn’t released Dorico yet, we would have nothing at all until several months down the road. As previous posters stated, it’s nice we can start getting familiar with it sooner rather than later.

I believe you have valid points, and I’m sorry to see/sense some of this has turned into personal upsetness between users.

We’re all into music. Music is about harmony. Dorico will get there soon. Sorry it’s so frustrating for you (rightly so).

Best,

Mike

16

I am looking forward to trying out Dorico when the trial version is released. My composing needs chord symbols and drum parts but I understand the need to patiently develop features properly before releasing them.

In the meantime is it possible to place text objects above notes to indicate chords?

Also is it possible to assign a five-line stave to MIDI channel 10 and input the appropriate trigger notes to get percussion playback?

(Hope this post doesn’t appear twice - not sure if I tapped the right buttons.)

17

You can certainly produce reasonable facsimiles for chord symbols using Dorico’s Shift+X text tool, but of course they don’t transpose, which is a big shortcoming.

Unfortunately getting anything sensible to happen with percussion on a five-line staff is more or less impossible at the moment, but this is a high priority for us. It’s not going to be addressed in the 1.0.10 update, but we will get working on it as soon as we possibly can.

18

I vaguely remember way back in Sibelius 1 days quite a few us (marching band directors) would set up single line percussion staves and later ‘squish them’ close together so they resembled a multiple line stave. The spaces were left empty, but it was good enough to get a quad/quint/tom rack or legible trap set notation going.

Would something similar be possible in Dorico’s current state?

19

It’s unfortunate that such heat has developed over stuff that has been very well aired already.

Though it’s unsurprising that the release of Dorico will have disappointed some, who feel the lack of certain features ruins the program for them, in its present state; while others, who feel they can see the big picture, are content to wait to see how the program will develop while making use of its considerable range of features right from the off.

One of the somewhat disturbing aspects of these discussions is the relationship that is perceived to exist between the developers (and Steinberg generally) and their actual or potential customers. Many of those who complain seem to have a sense of entitlement and feel they have been in some way wronged if the program does not deliver what they want. This is in spite of abundantly clear warnings about the limitations of the first version.

I’m afraid the OP seems to reveal some of this: “I suggest that you ask the people of this forum what they regard as important features or are we to be force fed whatever you deem we are worthy of having?”

This in unfair in a couple of ways. Firstly, people on this forum have been very articulate in what they think Dorico should do and most of us have the confidence in Daniel et al to listen to that, so this is already happening. Secondly, no-one is being force-fed anything; no-one has to buy the program. It’s out there, its features are listed; it’s offered for sale - take it or leave it.

The idea that the developers of Dorico represent some kind of condescending establishment that has us all in its power is absurd.

20

@ChrisC,
While you seem to be responding to the original sense of this thread, I hope you agree that asaph53 and Brian Roland are asking about sensible attempts to find work-arounds while they wait for the Development Team to make further improvements in the program. A tip of the hat to them.