Feature request: improved drums cue note support

[dan.h.tillberg]

Rationale
It is very common in drum parts (at least for styles such as pop, rock, jazz, soul, fusion, latin etc) that the drummer benefits from being informed about what happens rhytmically in the rest of the ensemble. Such information is typically propagated using ”drum cue notes” which are not the same as the existing Dorico cue notes (they some aspects in common but there are many differences and should therefore be treated as a separate entity).

Some examples:

Current situation
Today most of us with this need achieve this notation by the usage of an extra staff in which the cue notes are entered, then with the ”Cue” function (shift-U) they are transferred to the actual drum stuff. After some tampering, this might produce OK results like the ones above, but there are many drawbacks of this method:

• Most importantly, there is not a clear connection between the score and the part. The ”extra staff” is typically hidden in the finalized score. Generally the fact that the drum part with this method is the result of two superimposed staves is basically a bad thing from readability and editability perspectives. The score and the part should always reflect each other.

• Every time a region with this notation is to be defined, a label shows up from the ”extra staff”. There is today no way of not having this without removing labels for all cue labels in the entire projects. Such labels should for a start be possible to set by staff, however this is another question since the requested functionality will include no labels at all. Drum parts should be as clean as reasonbly possible. BTW, removing the label removes the cues as well. One way to make this work is to hide the label via the properties tab (activating ”Start text”). Perhaps there are other methods. But I promise, at least one will always be forgotten.

• Many unnecessary rests appear, and many of them seems not possible to remove. Example:
  

  
  
  The only way I have found to avoid this is to apply the ”Shift-U” method only in bars where the ”extra staff” contains something, meaning that the process becomes very fragmented and you need to do the same thing over and over many times.

Summing up: Today’s way of working with drum cue notes is a very time-consuming and unpredictable process with a great deal of trial and error and sequences of actions that needs to be repeated a very large number of times, and there is no clear connection in what is shown in the score and the part respectively.

Request and requirements
A dedicated drum staff cue note functionality should be added to Dorico, with a general set of functionalities to provide a good coverage of every day-needed editing of drum parts. These are the basic requirements:

• It should as per the examples above be possible to have cue notes on slash regions, which is probably the most common case. However there is no reason to limit the functionality to slash regions; some like to have cue notes on bar repeat regions as well. It might even be advantageous to be able to have cue notes in an otherwise empty measure.

• It should be possible to enter cue notes directly into the drum staff in the score (or in the drum part).

• The drum part and the score should reflect each other fully.

• Drum cue notes should an own category in the style gallery when it comes to font, size and initial vertical placement. This basic style should be configureable at least be on a project level, but even better on a staff level.

• It should be reasonably simple to edit drum cue notes directly in the score or part, e. g. with respect to font, size, vertical placement and stem length. Perhaps also horizontal placement just like normal notes.

• It would be very good if a region in another staff in the score could be marked as rhythmic source for the cue notes to decrease the need of work to manually enter every note – the expected rhythms are almost always already existing somewhere in the score! However it should be carefully noted on what to copy from a ”source region”. For instance, articulations might not be desired at all in the drum part since they might be considered irrelevant, or they have a slightly different meaning in drum notation than in the ”source” instrument notation, or they just decrease readability. Typically I remove all articulations in cue notes to make the part as clean as possible. Some people would like to keep articulations of force but not articulations of length etcetera. In any case it is important that a functionality for copying rhythm from one part to the drum part can be pre-configured by the user when it comes to what should be copied (articulations, slurs, dynamics etc) so that the same thing happens when using the functionality. (If there are needs of local changes visavi the configured default, they should be possible to do with existing methods for any type of notes).

• Whole measure rests should not be added by the program (see description about today’s way of working above in this post).

• It should be very easy and straightforward to hide also other rests (than whole measure rests) in the cue line. Consider the following example:
  
  Here I would like to remove some rests since the do not actually contribute to anything and drummer might even consider them annoying. Actually I think I would like to hide them all; the rhythm should be obvious to most drummers also without them. Another option would be to hide the half-bar rest and let the other ones remain, or remove also the quarter rest leaving only the eight rest. The need is varying with taste and situation, therefore it should be very simple to select on a spot-by-spot basis.

[Janus]

Have you tried using rhythmic cues?

[dan.h.tillberg]

@Janus , take a look at this thread. Correct steps to make a rhythmic cue?. Also, besides the limitations described there, you can not enter or edit rhytmic cues directly in the drum staff or drum part since they are sourced from elsewhere which is not ok (other than initially as described). Then I don’t know if they are possible to combine with slash regions or bar repeats? Are they? Furthermore, I don’t think you can edit the cue notes from a font/size/stem length perspective (other then a global setting). Can you? Also, will the drum part and score drum staff show the same thing?

[cparmerlee]

@dan.h.tillberg

you can not enter or edit rhythmic cues directly in the drum staff or drum part since they are sourced from elsewhere

This is true, but I don’t really understand what situation would lead me to give a drummer a cue that isn’t being played by somebody in the band. As I see it, the rhythmic cues feature already provides most of what you are asking for. I agree there are some areas that could be streamlined a bit.

It seems you are trying to have a cue run on for many measures (or even the entire piece.) My cues are never more than a measure or two for drum parts. If you view each cue as a separate entity, you should not have the extra rests. And once you have entered a cue for Alto Sax, Trumpet, bass or whatever, it is easy to copy that cue to the next place you want to cue that same instrument, and it will bring all the stylistic info from the prior instance.

[FredGUnn]

Very well thought out and reasoned post Dan! I agree with all the options you are proposing.

Once more with feeling, the core problem / misunderstanding / lack of functionality with all the Dorico Drum cueing options, whether rhythmic, hidden staff, actual staff, etc., is that Drum “cues” are not cues, they are the actual part. A Drum “cue” isn’t telling the drummer, “here’s what the brass are doing so you can follow along and not get lost,” it is telling the drummer, “here’s what the brass are doing so you can play it on your Drum kit as you see fit.” If a drummer doesn’t play the figure, then they are wrong and aren’t playing the part correctly. It’s not optional, although the exact implementation is left up to their own taste and musicality as dictated by the situation.

As such, unlike “regular cues,” Drum “cues” must be visible in both part and score. Currently in Dorico cue visibility is all or nothing for a layout. I can show the necessary Drum “cues” in the score, but that also shows all the other cues that the conductor does not need to see. There’s currently no capability to just show the drum cues, without the convoluted steps of Select All, Filter Cues, Hide all, then turn them back on for the Drum staff. If I’m conducting from a big band score, the Drum staff in the score is worthless if I can’t see what the drummer is seeing. The conductor absolutely needs to see the Drum “cues” as well to know if the part is being played accurately, or if the part is simply missing information.

A few other comments:

@dan.h.tillberg

It would be very good if a region in another staff in the score could be marked as rhythmic source for the cue notes to decrease the need of work to manually enter every note – the expected rhythms are almost always already existing somewhere in the score!

Unless you are making a single drum part on its own, it generally is pretty easy to add a Shift+U cue to cue an instrument that already exists in the score into a Drum part, so the extra staff method is often unnecessary.

@dan.h.tillberg

Whole measure rests should not be added by the program (see description about today’s way of working above in this post).

You can just create multiple Shift+U cues that omit the rests. Just cue the regions you want cued.

@dan.h.tillberg

Here I would like to remove some rests since the do not actually contribute to anything and drummer might even consider them annoying. Actually I think I would like to hide them all;

This definitely should be an option as well. Unless I’m missing a setting, Dorico will always show the rests in the bar.

Additionally, it is quite common for Drum “cues” to be displayed at 100% rather than cue size, as they are really “regular” notes to be played. I’d love a Drum “cue” feature that would allow notes to be 100%.

Honestly, I almost always just use a regular notation staff for Drum parts and manually input the “cue” lines. I even have a StreamDeck button to filter rests and assign them at Rest pos. 6.

[dan.h.tillberg]

@cparmerlee , is is true that the rhythms almost always exist somewhere else in the score, however they might not be exactly from a certain trumpet staff or a certain trombone staff or a sax staff. They can be a mix of different rhythms in various places of the score, and in such situations (which are certainly not unusual) it might be easier to type in the rhythm you want the drummer to see direcly in the staff (and thus show up in the part exactly similarly). Of course, if you have an exact rhythm in some staff somewhere, then it would be great to use that as a basis for your drum cue just as I have stated. However, the drum cues you enter this way should generally said NOT be connected to the original “source” - once copied from the source they are now part of the drum staff/part and own entities within this. As a writer, I must be totally free to change either the “source” and the drum cue independently if this is what I want to do and so it is fairly often. Drum cue notes are part of the drum staff/part, and should not a be a reference to something else. Besides, what is displayed in the drum staff in the score should - again as I wrote - always be mirrored in the part and vice versa.

If I want a function that uses “source” instruments only for drum cues, then I already have that as part of Dorico as regular cue notes. For me this is not working for all the reasons mentioned. It is simple not a tool that is sharp enough for this purpose.

Another thing is that even if you have a “source staff” to rely on for your drum cues, you might want the display rhythm to differ. For example, you might want to exclude some notes, or you might want to replace short notes with longer values, e. g. 4 16ths to a quarter.

Besides I would really like to be able to edit cue notes from a design perspective just the way usual notes can be edited.

And I never have articulations on drum cue notes. I know my drummers - I want it clean and readable for them to play what I want

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

Drum cue notes are part of the drum staff/part, and should not a be a reference to something else

Then why not just enter them into a drum part? As mentioned, I almost always just use a “regular” notation staff for drum parts as I usually don’t care about playback, and just want to notate things the way a drummer will want see them. If I need playback too, then I’ll add and hide an actual percussion staff, but usually I don’t bother.

Obviously the hits I’m giving the drummer above don’t exactly correspond to the Alto line, but are what I want them to see. They are just “regular” notes.

[dan.h.tillberg]

@FredGUnn I am confused, and need to run right now. But are you using a drum/percussion staff for this or is it a regular staff?

[dspreadbury]

Even if Todd were using a percussion staff (though I know he mostly uses a regular notation staff rather than a percussion kit), it’s no problem to add notes wherever you need them on the drum staff. You could add a specific kit instrument that you use for writing in your cue notes.

I agree that we should have some separate options for cues in percussion kits, but I see the need as more along the lines of taking our existing cues and making it easier to show them independently for percussion kits, with some key options for things like whether they appear at full size or at cue size.

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

But are you using a drum/percussion staff for this or is it a regular staff?

It’s just a regular staff. As Daniel mentioned above, even if it were a Percussion staff, that wouldn’t prohibit you from doing that kind of notation. I usually just use a “regular” staff so I always have the full range of Dorico’s editing capabilities, unless I specifically need the Percussion features for playback. You can create your own “non-percussion” drum set, or simply take something like the Timpani (No key sig) instrument and rename it.

There’s obviously nothing requiring you to use the Cue feature with a drum staff if it’s not actually what is required, then you can just input whatever you’d like.

[dan.h.tillberg]

@FredGUnn , some comments to your comments:

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

This is a misunderstanding. Drum cues should as I see it never be sourced in the meaning that they only mirror something else. Such “sourcing” means that you can not edit your cue notes at all, the only thing you can do is to change the “source” and then the “sourced cue notes” changes accordingly. This can never be acceptable for drum cue notes of all the reasons mentioned. You might want to have rhythms from multiple sources in the same measure, and you might want to simplify an existing rhythm in e. g. a wind instrument by replacing or omitting. So cue notes must always be possible to edit (to start with, from a music/rhythmic perspective). Shift-U is absolutely not a good option here but serves as a workaround if you have a dedicated “cue staff” (I use a single line drum staff for this).

What I ment with the sentence you quoted above is only for making it possible to save time when entering drum cue notes - i. e. when possible (i. e. it is not always possible), make it easy to copy an existing rhythm from somewhere with a simple action so that the rhythm ends up in the right place in the drum staff. However, as mentioned in the requirement starting this thread, it is important that this copy function can be configured. For instance, I would essentially never have articulations on the drum cues so I don’t want them as part of the copy. There are also other things like slurs, texts, dynamics etc that I certainly don’t want to have in the cue line. In short, this “time saving rhythm copy function” must be configureable to be efficiant for every writer.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Yes, that is what I wrote in the initial requirements thread start, but I also noted that “the process becomes very fragmented and you need to do the same thing over and over many times.”. I can not see that this is a good way of working in any aspect.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

OK, but here we have different opinions. To me it depends a bit on how the drum part looks from other perspectives. Sometimes I want them bigger since they are easier to see, sometimes I want them smaller to mark that they are cue notes and not “ordinary” notes (or just to make the drum part less “busy” for complicated music). Therefore I still stand also with these two requirements in the beginning of the thread:

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[dan.h.tillberg]

@dspreadbury

I agree that we should have some separate options for cues in percussion kits, but I see the need as more along the lines of taking our existing cues and making it easier to show them independently for percussion kits, with some key options for things like whether they appear at full size or at cue size.

This makes me concerned. As both me and @FredGUnn has pointed out, drum cue notes are not really cue notes as today’s cue notes are designed in Dorico. They are important parts of the drum staff itself, and must be possible to handle independently both when entering them, changing them rhythmically or changing their layout. I think this is clear from my initial statements, so I hope that I just misunderstood what you wrote.

And again to be extra clear, it is a good feature to be able to use some instrument in the score as a source to copy the rhythm from (with the necessary adjustments I have tried to describe), but as soon as the cue notes are in place in the drum staff, they constitute an own entity that I can change freely without affecting anything else in the score.

And, as always, as @FredGUnn points out - drum cue notes must be visible in the score so that the conductor and the drummer see the same thing.,

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

So cue notes must always be possible to edit (to start with, from a music/rhythmic perspective). Shift-U is absolutely not a good option here

Then don’t use cues. Just input the notes. I’m relinking the image I posted earlier in the thread to demonstrate below. Correct rhythms are input, nothing is linked, problem solved. I don’t see what you are asking for here with this that isn’t already trivial to accomplish.

@dan.h.tillberg

I also noted that “the process becomes very fragmented and you need to do the same thing over and over many times.”. I can not see that this is a good way of working in any aspect.

If you actually want fragmented cues containing different sections of music, then the process will of course be a bit fragmented. Just don’t select any cues containing whole rests. Or don’t use cues at all and input the notes. There’s no “Create Drum Part” AI that will know what hits are important and which hits aren’t. Just write what you want. You can’t just select an entire part and ask Dorico to create a drum part for you. There’s not a substitute for using comp/arranging/engraving skill and creating a drum part that a drummer will actually want to read.

@dan.h.tillberg

Sometimes I want them bigger since they are easier to see, sometimes I want them smaller to mark that they are cue notes and not “ordinary” notes (or just to make the drum part less “busy” for complicated music).

Daniel already commented above that he recognizes this need and they will consider “some key options for things like whether they appear at full size or at cue size.” I generally prefer full size, but here’s the drum part to Thad’s Three and One where they are maybe 50% size. Different strokes for different folks. The more sizing options, the better IMO.

[dan.h.tillberg]

OK, yes we have another difference in opinions: cue notes in drums are not like ordinary notes. They are information to the drummer. If I as a writer really want a rhythm played, then I use rhythmic notation. This should give no option: I want exactly this rhythm played. However, when using cue notes I state that “this is a rhythm that you will hear in the band”. You can use it for orientating yourself, you can play it in a way that you select, or you can ignore it. I have noticed that different drummers interpret this a little differently. Most drummers I have worked with use them to play the rhythm if they feel that to be appropriate in the context (and not for instance lose the groove while doing this, or else make the drumming “scattered” and “edgy”). This is a kind of drummers I like to work with. Some other drummers however see the cue notes as “law” just like rhythmic notation, and if I know that I am writing for a band with a drummer doing this, then I am forced to simply decrease the number of cue notes to make the drumming smoother and more musical. This is of course to a large extent a matter of taste.

But as a conclusion: I see a very big difference between cue notes, rhythmic notation and ordinary notes (in which I state more exactly how I want something to be played on the individual instruments such as cymbals, snare, toms, kick drum, hihat etc).

So I stick stiffly with my basic opinion: there are different ways of notating drums which I have tried to outline in an earlier post Jazz/pop/rock drum part considerations

But then I get confused: as far as I remember it was earlier not possible to enter “regular notes” on slashes or rhytmic cues. The recommendation from Dorico was then to use a separate cue staff and use shift-U which is what I do (with all the frustration it gives).

Obviously something has changed here (which I have then missed) so that you can combine slashes/bar repeats with ordinary notes. Could you point out where I can read about this?

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

The recommendation from Dorico was then to use a separate cue staff and use shift-U which is what I do (with all the frustration it gives).

Obviously something has changed here (which I have then missed) so that you can combine slashes/bar repeats with ordinary notes. Could you point out where I can read about this?

I obviously don’t know the context, but I would think the cue suggestion might have been for a separate drum part, where there’s nothing else easily available in an existing score to cue from. I honestly have never needed to use that method, and most of the time I don’t actually use cues in the drum part either.

Drum input varies a bit depending on if you care about playback or not. Here’s an example where the top staff is a “regular” notation staff, and the bottom staff is an actual percussion staff:

No cues were used. Clearly it’s possible to accomplish the same type of input in either, I just find it easier to work with the notation staff so that’s what I usually do unless I care about playback. The bottom percussion staff isn’t going to play back how a real drummer is going to play it anyway.

With the Slash region in the top staff, you just need to check “show other voices” in Properties to get the notes to show. You can also scale them to whatever size you want too:

[dan.h.tillberg]

@FredGUnn

I obviously don’t know the context, but I would think the cue suggestion might have been for a separate drum part, where there’s nothing else easily available in an existing score to cue from

Nope this was not the reason. The instruction was how to get cue notes on top of a slash region, or a bar repeat region. I start to understand that you don’t use any of these and if this is better I will of course stop using them as well. I have some questions about this, I will continue this in a private thread.

[dan.h.tillberg]

OK now I have tested the method with entering drum cue notes as “regular notes” on both slash regions and on one bar repeats.

Generally this is better since drum cue notes are more “regular notes” that belong only to the drum staff, then the type of cue notes that already exists in Dorico - this function is better suited for other purposes and can not be used here. The reason for not testing this earlier but only use the “dummy staff” method is not really clear to myself, but if I am not mistaken it was not possible to enter visible and printable notes in a slash or bar repeat region when I started to use Dorico, therefore the recommendation was to use dummy staff and shift -U for this situation… So it is very good that visible and printable notes can be added directly on a slash / bar repeat region. Thanks @FredGUnn for enlighten me on this! I will stop using the dummy staff method right away.

What I did then trying this out was to add a new instrument to the kit in position 5, then it is just to start note input in both kinds of region.

For slash regions this is quite OK especially if you are happy with the size of the notes.

It is possible to change the size to cue note size by selecting the notes and use property “Scale” and select “Cue”. I would have loved to be able to set an own default size for all cue notes to be entered this way, and also changeable afterwords so that you easily can change the size of all cue notes in your drum staff. Now since this is not possible (as far as I know) the only way to change the default large notes to cue size by selecting with the mouse which gives some extra (and repeated) work that can not be done with the keyboard. Correct me if I’m wrong. Tried to find a way to filter both notes and rests in a staff but haven’t found so far.

When it comes to doing the same for bar repeat regions it is even more repeated work required, since the rests in the cue note line is place on the center line and must be manually adjusted to the proper position.

So when using this method, the set of requirements should be something like this:

• When entering cue notes directly on a slash or bar region, it should be possible to set a default size before entering the notes. This setting should be possible to change easily (without the need for mouse select) for all notes of this this type to be entered and having effect also on already entered notes.

• Is would be good to also be able to change note size/font etc for specific notes/measures (e. g. selected with the mouse).

• Size/font settings should be apply to both notes and rests in the cue line.

• When entering notes in a cue line, the rests should be automatically placed in the same line as the notes.

• Rests should be possible to hide.

• The drum part and the score should reflect each other fully.

• A “copy rhythm” function would be of great help here. See more detailed description in the thread start.

[Mark_Johnson]

The scale factor for cues is set at Engraving Options > Cues. This applies both to actual cues and anything scaled to “cue” size in Properties, and can be changed later.

You can select whole bars and filter for an individual voice. This selects both notes and rests.

[dan.h.tillberg]

Yep, good, thanks. ///DT