Sometimes the last note of a cue begins a played measure. This works well in Dorico unless the final note value overlaps the played notes:
and the final note is best shortened and a l. v. tie added to avoid the overlapping:
I can think of a couple of workarounds, one of which I used in the second example. But an option to make this easier would be welcome. Unless this capability already exists, which would be welcome news!
I’m not sure where the problem is. If the music overlaps, why not show it?
Or, if you are afraid the player will be waiting until the flute has played two beats (and does not look to their own rests), you could maybe us two tied quarter notes as a cue.
Yeah, entrance cues certainly can’t overlap the player’s actual entrance. (Optional performance cues, like if Clarinet 2 needs to cover an absent Oboe 3, can overlap if covering the cued line is more important.) John and I have discussed this before, and I know he’s in the Arnstein school where you cue right up to the entrance even into the bar, but the more modern convention is to not cue into the bar of entrance unless absolutely necessary, like if the player needs to see how they pick up the line, or if it’s a long bar like 15/8 or something.
The whole purpose of an entrance cue is to clarify the entrance after a period of rest. An overlapping cue like the top example, obscures the entrance instead of clarifying it, so absolutely needs to be avoided.
Even the top example wouldn’t bother me at all, with the exception of that lone quarter rest in the cue, which is really confusing. I mean, the actual line I’m supposed to play is there, it doesn’t really matter that the cue plays a half note, I still have to come in on the 2.
My 2c,
B.
Would you be so kind to share the workaround you used?
I find the dot below the staff line confusing too in that example. If this is a Flute 2 part and I’m following along with the cue, by the time Flute 1 plays the A# I’m already confident of where I am and am no longer following the cue. Instead I am looking a bar ahead, taking a breath, and preparing for my entrance. I’m certainly not going to pay any attention the half note F (F# in key sig?) on the downbeat of my bar of entrance which is just clutter. Cues are supposed to be helpful. If it’s not helping the player, why include it?
Ah, you’re right, the dot adds to the “off” feel I had!
Yeah, your version is the cleanest… 
And indeed, if you’re happily reading along with the cue into your entrance, well.. ! 
While I agree with everything FredGunn writes about simply ending the cue before beat 1, that rest could be removed with this property, as long as the cue itself ends before that particular beat:
That would still leave the dot below the staff line though, which bothers me even more than the clutter.
Haha, I have been caught doing that a couple of times. Reading along into the bar and then “oh crap, I’m supposed to be playing”
I don’t want to guess what John did here, but the standard cueing workaround people use for cues in Drum parts is to have a “Cue” staff that isn’t included in the score, but can be used to cue from in the parts. I would imagine something similar would work here, although if the Flute 1 part was later revised, the cue wouldn’t automatically update and the Cue staff would need to be revised as well.
Many years ago I went to see “La Cage” on broadway. We had really close seats and I couldn’t help but see the oboist reading a newspaper when all of a sudden he threw it down and grabbed his horn to start playing. I wasn’t sure if he missed anything!
I ended the cue in the previous measure and put that last note in voice 2, reduced it to cue size and reversed the stems. I could also have created a special cue line in the score as mentioned by @FredGUnn and entered the cue ending with a quarter note on that staff.
The reason I think that final F# note belongs there is because it ends the previous phrase, and the oboe player has a syncopated entrance on the second beat in reaction to that final flute downbeat. I think it will help the interpretation, so I would want to include it.
You will see this type of cuing done throughout the parts of the standard orchestral repertoire, as in the following two examples from the Brahms Symphony no. 1 Flute 1 (Breitkopf Complete Works Edition), which I took at random from many like it in this flute part:
For this reason, I think that adding this capability deserves consideration.
When I was on the “Phantom of the Opera” tour back in the 90’s, the violist I sat next to memorized everything and read magazines for the entire show. He never missed an entrance.
I haven’t tried to hustle Broadway work for 20 years or so, but I used to sub a bit, and after doing 8 shows a week for a couple of weeks, all the regular musicians basically had their parts memorized so just pick up their horns a second before the entrance. It’s the subs that are stressing out!
(I’ve heard the Vanguard band many times too where Gary Smulyan doesn’t even open his book the entire set and plays the whole thing from memory.)
Certainly! (Though I might also consider parentheses or brackets if the duration of a cued note is altered so it doesn’t catch one unawares)!
@jaskarbong Thanks for your support.
The use of the l. v. tie is the standard way to show this, and I would be nervous about doing anything else.
Since the notes are rarely overlapped, at least in my experience, this is something that might be done automatically by Dorico, with an option to undo it if necessary.
I really need to get a copy of Gould to learn how things are normally handled (not that this particular case may be in it) but I hesitate reading is a very slow method of learning for me and it’s an expense that would therefore be hard to justify considering my slightly advanced age! So I bow to your wisdom and experience and hope this can be added soon.
Dorico already does this automatically if the cue ends at a barline. It seems reasonable to expect Dorico to do this no matter where the cue ends.
It would be nice in the above example if the cue in the Flute 2 part ended with a quarter with an l.v. tie as the cue region stops at beat 2.
Gould does not cue into the bar of entrance. Here’s page 571.
Boosey doesn’t either, but they also use an l.v. tie to show that the sounding note continues:
I guess it is all in how you read a passage.
What stands out to me is "Unless it is important to follow through a cue right up to an entry (e.g. to show how the player continues a phrase)…
Which is exactly why I would do it as shown in the OP and as in the Brahms examples. I consider it important to show the last note of a phrase when a player enters in response to it or is continuing a phrase from another player.
Thank you for your support in expanding Dorico’s capability in this regard. The fact that it can already shorten notes and add the ties gave me hope that this could be expanded and prompted the OP.
I guess to me there just needs to be more rhythmic complexity or ambiguity to cue into the bar. I probably would in a more complicated situation like this where the Alto picks up the Tenor line:
Interestingly, Dorico does truncate the final note and use an l.v. tie here. I guess it does that if possible but won’t change a longer note to display with an l.v. If I use Force Duration to make the C in the Tenor a quarter, then it also becomes a quarter in the cue.
