Entering percussion notation to an instrumental (not percussion) part

As a reed player, I’ll just mention that this would be extremely uncommon. I’ve had parts where I’ve had to sing, clap, stomp, play claves, even with one band with a relatively famous (infamous?) bandleader we had to play a small tom attached to our stands, but I’ve never seen anything other than a 5-line staff in a Reed part. Not saying you can’t do it, but it would be very unusual.

Thanks for sharing, Fred! Music has been a welcome avocation for me and after many years of writing, arranging (handwritten), and playing in sax ensemble (The Nuclear whales Saxophone Orchestra), I am trying to get everything digitized to make my music available. Dorico is wonderful and I am only scratching the surface. I got through some of the rudimentary stuff to write charts for a recently released CD, but now that I am looking to publish my work and make it look right, the challenge is on. There is so much to learn!

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Since when we began this thread you did not mention your players were using transposing instruments, you would likely find @Bollen 's original suggestion the simplest: put the Clap note(s) directly into each player’s part; change the notehead to an x-notehead, and suppress playback in the Properties panel.

If you need playback, use a hidden player with a Clap sound.

I know that ensemble! Y’all have a contrabass player too, right? Is that you? Vandoren had me write all the music for their holiday hang/concert in NYC every year for about 10 years (until COVID ended it) and Scott Robinson often did it, so I’ve written for bass a bunch of times, but never contra. I’ve done a few gigs where Scott has played contra though, and it’s an amazing instrument!

EDIT: Here’s a link to Scott’s subcontra (!!!) if you haven’t heard it.

I played primarily bass in the group. Occasionally I would arrange or write something using the contra to give myself a brief respite and play tenor or bari. I gave the big beast a couple of toots when we got it and then begged off. It, along with the bass and sopranino, has a new home in Rhode Island since June.

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