Wondering if anyone has a bright idea for creating two key signatures before a snippit of music.
I’m trying to create exercises which modulate sequentially upwards or downwards by half-steps, like in the attached photo (Source is Brad Edwards’s excellent book of Lip Slurs for trombonists). It’s a great space saver when a passage in Bb is then repeated in B, for instance, since the notes would occupy the same notes and spaces.
So far I’ve tried putting keys in adjacent measures, then shrinking the whole rest to 1% scale, then shoving them together in Engraving. I find it inelegant at best. shakes fist at sky THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY!
I’m just about to rush out for an appointment, but I’ll explain how I did it a little later on. Until then, you might like to a) show signposts, b) check out Properties of the first note, and c) view Engrave mode > Note Spacing, to get some ideas.
These are the steps I used to create the Dorico project which I uploaded earlier:
Create a new empty project and add a Trombone player
At the very start, input a 1/4 time signature
Click on the barline immediately following that and input a 4/4 time signature with a 1 beat anacrusis (shift-M 4/4,1 Enter)
Click on the 1/4 TS and input a B flat major key signature
Click on the 4/4 TS and input a B major key signature - if this key signature has cancellation naturals, go into Engraving Options > Key Signatures and set “Cancellation naturals at changes of key signature:” to Common practice (don’t forget to click Apply and Close)
Input the notes starting in the 4/4 section
Click on the 1/4 TS, open Properties (the lower zone) and enable Hide time signature
Click on the first note in the 4/4 section (ie the pickup beat). In Properties, enable Starts voice
Click on the double barline at the key change and either open the barlines popover and type dashed (shift-B dashed Enter) or click on the dashed barline icon in the Bars and Barlines panel in the right zone
Go into Engrave mode > Note Spacing, click on the square edit handle (above the dashed barline) and move it leftwards using alt/opt+left arrow (for small steps) and shift+alt/opt+left arrow (for larger steps)
If you need to adjust the spacing of the KS and/or TS after the dashed barline, click on the square edit handle which was used to shift the dashed barline and use the round edit handles in between the KS and TS
If you need to revert/undo any spacing changes, the quickest way is to select a red edit handle and press Delete
Here is the complete exercise 18 from the Edwards book.
When starting the second and fourth systems, I discovered that the 1/4 measure with its rest removed caused a cautionary key signature to display at the end of the first system, even with the key signature set to Hide in Properties. Removing the rest at the start of the system has the effect of setting the final rest in the first system to Ends Voice. Obviously an issue with the combination of Ends Voice in the last measure of a system and hiding a cautionary key signature at the end of a system. I have reported it to the Dorico dev team. The workaround was to insert a note in that 1/4 measure and hide it in Properties (in Engrave mode) - this puts something in the voice, effectively cancelling the Ends Voice property of the preceding rest. Completing the exercise was a matter of using the System Track to select and repeat one section at a time, changing the key signatures, moving the notes, some careful deleting of key signatures and 1/4 measures where only one key signature was required (ie for F and B flat), and the re-spacing of the dashed barlines in Engrave mode > Note Spacing. By the way, the measures containing the noteheads are in 14/4 with the time signature hidden.
Edit:
Instead of having a hidden note in the 1/4 bar, another approach is to delete the note thus re-instating the rest, change the colour of the rest to white then use Rest pos. to move it out of the staff. If the rest is a whole-bar rest it will need be at Rest pos. -5, otherwise its partial ledger line will show.
Truth be told, I’d like to see official support for this. In the examples above, the keys keep shifting since it’s an exercise book, however I’ve seen actual publications of psalms with double signatures so they can be transposed at sight (Db / D major, for isntance). It’s rare, but real, and those pages need the double-signatures throughout.
Another thing that I’ve seen is where the key signature is static, and there is only a single one on each stave, apart from the beginning, where the alternate signature is offered in parentheses on the first stave. This would probably be my preferred implementation.
This can be accomplished with a custom key signature containing first, middle and last flats that behave like naturals so the playback will be correct:
As an alternative to the workaround by @StevenJones01 to create double key signatures, I have reproduced exercise 18 from the book by Brad Edwards using custom key signatures:
Two custom accidentals are used to create the double key signatures:
The first custom accidental looks like a flat but behaves like a natural, and is used for all of the flats in the custom key signatures. When the key signature changes to C major in the first system, naturals cancel the five sharps in the previous key signature but not the two fake flats.
The second custom accidental contains a space character, three tick barlines arranged in one column to simulate a dashed barline, and a sharp. This accidental is used for the first sharp in each custom key signature.
Wow, two excellent methods! Thank you so much Steven and John for taking the time to play around with this. I’ll try them out tomorrow and see if I can replicate.
