Feature request: Multimeasure play (elaborate version)

[dan.h.tillberg]

(note: this request has earlier been stated, see Feature request: multimeasure play. The older post can be considered to be replaced by this post).

Rationale
In e. g. big bands and similar ensembles, the drummer is often playing parts of a composition/arrangement in which he or she basically needs to accompany certain orchestral parts or improvised solos. In such parts, there might be no need to specify anything more than number of measures in fixed lenght part, or number of measures in an open repeat or similar. It is way of saying: just continue with what you are doing until other instructions become relevant.

Furthermore, in many compositions and arrangements, the drummer is busy during the entire piece and most drummers I know would like to avoid page turns as far as possible. It is thus both easier to read, and more practical for the drummer if sections with ”comp” are kept as short and simple as possible.

To meet both these needs, I hereby again propose a new simple function with the working name “multimeasure play”.

Current situation
The desired way of notation can be achieved in Dorico today with an unreasonably unpractical and time consuming method (the one I know, there might be others). The method I now use is based on manipulating multimeasure rests and adding texts or text boxes, but this is very time consuming. I would estimate that today I spend 75 % of the finalization time to look over and adjust all the other 16 or 17 parts in a big band chart, and 25 % on the drum part alone if I want to keep it clean, readable and max two or three pages.

• Most of this work requires trial and error to make it look nice by manipulating numbers aimed for other purposes

• Repeated switches between ”write” and ”engrave” modes are necessary, since some things needs to be done in ”write” and others in ”engrave”.

• If you make a late modification to the overall design of the part e. g. with system or frame brakes, the changes will affect what you have done earlier with the manipulated multimeasure rests and you will likely have to redo parts of it if not all.

• Most important: there is no real relation between the score and the part for these regions.

Request and requirements
A very time saving feature would be to be able to mark a number of measures in the score as a ”multimeasure play” region. This is very similar to a region of empty measures that will be displayed in the corresponding part as a multimeasure rest.

This could look like this (example):

Here it is important that is configurable how to display this. For instance:

• The displayed text could be set with a default (e. g. ”play”) but should be easy to modify if so desired, e. g. to make it read ”Play 6 more”, ”Play 6 bars”, ”Time 6 play” or whatever is the writers choice. A users should have the option to set his own global default but still be able to change the text easily for a specific instance.

• Font, and font size should be set on a project level, perhaps as a font style or paragraph style or similar.

• The width of the area where this marking could be handled exactly like multimeasure rests are treated today. It might be good to have an option for making the width be proportional to the number of measures in the region. It might also be good to be able to set a specific width in a specific region, e. g. via the properties tab.

• Also the border and background should be configureable in terms of existence, thickness, roundings and color as a project level default.

• Once configured, it should be enough to mark a region in the score as ”multimeasure play” area, and the result should be direct with no need of additional actions.

• ”Multimeasure play” regions should never appear if the writer has not explicitely marked a regions as such.

• There are no needs fo applying this concept to parts of measures – only full bars

Relation to the score
The multimeasure region must be reflected in the score. There are no strong requirements on the exact details on how to mark the measures; proposedly it should be fit in to the general Dorico standards and styles.

Just as a very rough proposal to start with something, such bars could be marked with a repeat sign in a circle (or something else that is convenient to read). It might also be a good idea to have a property on ”local numbering” of such an area (all measures or just the last) or no numbering at all which I think should be the default.

[cparmerlee]

I do something similar using the line feature. I think that works better than other methods, but is still tedious, requiring measures to be blanked out by setting the alpha property to 1, and then remembering to export the drum part to PDF in color rather than B&W.

(I think in this example, I set the color of rests to white. If you use the alpha channel instead, you don’t get those gaps on the second line.) It would be nice if I could enter a variable into the text to insert the correct number of measures, as in “Play %m bars swing” or whatever. And it would be nice to have an easy way to hide everything but the staff, while still allowing the drum patterns to play.

[dspreadbury]

It seems to me that this request is really for an alternative way of displaying bar repeat regions in parts. Rather than showing a consolidated bar repeat as a single bar with a number of bars above it, show some boxed text conatining the number of bars to be played. Am I wrong?

[cparmerlee]

@dspreadbury

alternative way of displaying bar repeat regions

Conceptually, yes. Or one could think of it as a variation on slash notation. The idea is that professional drummers prefer to have only the most essential information (meter, tempos & tempo changes, style, measures in each song form section, any important hits from the winds, places where the drummer fills or solos, and any other places where the drummer is to play something exactly as written. Otherwise, they really don’t want or need to read notes.

[dan.h.tillberg]

@dspreadbury perhaps it is, if you can configure and control WHAT should be displayed (including graphical aspects as stated in the request) and WHEN it should be displayed (I really think it is me as a writer who should be in control of this) and with a variable number of measures, i. e. not just 1, 2 or 4 but perhaps 36 or 17. I know that the old bar repeat functionalites exist already in Dorico and I use them sometimes when so appropriate. But they are not really close to what I ask for here - I would consider this to be a separate functionality that will be in the same family as bar repeats, but another, more sophisticated, family member. That I can configure to the desired design.

[dspreadbury]

I struggle to understand how what you’re asking for is fundamentally different to the existing bar repeat regions. It seems to me that if we had a way of displaying “Play 6” (or whatever) instead of a single bar repeat with a 6 above it in the part, and a way of showing “Play 6” at the start of the bar repeat region in the full score layout followed by the remaining regular bar repeats (it seems unnecessary to me to enclose them in a circle or ellipse), then wouldn’t we have exactly what you’re looking for here?

[dan.h.tillberg]

@dspreadbury ok can you show me the steps to achieve my example (from an actual and used chart)? I repeat it here:

[dspreadbury]

I’m not saying that it’s easily possible to produce that result now, rather that I see your request as being incremental improvement to the existing bar repeats feature, not a whole new feature.

[dan.h.tillberg]

Hm, that is why I state the feature request. Btw, I see this much more related to multimeasure rests than repeat bars. Perhaps that is just a matter of terminology…

[dspreadbury]

It’s our job to design the software, so I suggest you leave that to us. All we ask of our users is that you describe your requirements, not what you imagine would be the best solution – we’re much better placed to make that determination than you are.

[JesterMusician]

“Multi-measure play” already exists — it’s just called “consolidated bar repeat regions”. You don’t need to use multi-measure rests.

The following notation can be achieved if you use a Bar Repeat Region and enable Consolidate Multi-bar Rests and Bar Repeats in Layout Options.

It’s just not customizable to the extent you’re describing, which is to simply show those numbers inside a box with text. (And I agree that would be nice.)

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

ok can you show me the steps to achieve my example

Use Jester’s Layout Options as he described above. Create a Paragraph Style with the font size, border, and white background you want. Blast the numbers off the page and shrink the repeat size down to 1 so it’s hidden in the staff line. Apply your text with the Paragraph style you created.

The problem with this style of notation that I assume will be a bit tricky to sort out, is that you will likely require different notational styles between part and score. The consolidated style of course is fine for the part, but is that what you really want in the score? If not, what do you want? Slashes, bar repeats? Due to the way bar repeats work, the count number is actually off by 1, as bar repeats are assuming there is a previous bar that is being repeated to include in the count.

This incorrect count will need to be accommodated in the score somehow if bar repeats are to be used.

[dan.h.tillberg]

@dspreadbury , I must say I am profoundly surprised over the tone in your latest answer. You started an earlier post in this thread like this: “I struggle to understand how what you’re asking for is fundamentally different to the existing bar repeat regions.”. In my eyes this opens for a discussion on what is what, which is not bad at all. This is important stuff for many of us, so why not have a good discussion if that is what it takes to improve the functionality? My answer to this was “I see this much more related to multimeasure rests than repeat bars” which is exactly true - this is how I think about it. Others might think of it another way, that’s fine. This statement was obviously controversial in some respect, I can see that. But I honestly haven’t got the slightest clue on why. I would really like to understand why this caused such a reaction.

You continue your post with the following: “All we ask of our users is that you describe your requirements, not what you imagine would be the best solution – we’re much better placed to make that determination than you are.”.

Hm…isn’t this exactly what I did when starting this thread? Where do you find suggestions from my side on any technical details in the software that would meet the requirements? Or is it the requirements that I have spent quite some time stating (and not for the first time) that you find provocative? Or do you see that what I ask for in the feature request are not real requirements, but a solution proposal? Well, that could also be discussed. It is for sure that I see something that I would like the software to do, and which I now do more or less totally manually with trial and error methods. Therefore I have outlined what I would like my drum parts to look. Solution or requirements? Well I would go for the latter. But also that might perhaps be disputable.

Fact is still that I spend more than 10 times more time and effort on a drum part in Dorico than I spend on any other part. There is large room for improvement in this area, and being a paying active and experienced user it would be quite odd if I did not express what the drawbacks with the current software is in the area I work in. If you are “much better placed to make that determination than you are”, then I can really look forward to a bright future in coming releases. I am still waiting and hoping for this!

But to get answers like your latest post when trying to describe what is needed is certainly not ok. Being in the software business myself, we always appreciate when people spend time describing what they need. We never disrespect them.

[dspreadbury]

You’re reading a tone into my response which I didn’t intend, Dan, and I’m not in the business of disrespecting our customers. I’m sorry that I came across that way.

As you work in software yourself, you’ll know that it can be difficult to separate your idea of how a problem should be solved from your understanding of its requirements. Many of our users without such experience will find it much harder to make that separation, and in general it’s much more common for us to be presented with a user’s idea of the solution rather than the underlying requirement. Of course, as the product manager with responsibility for understanding user requirements, it’s my job to unpick those requests and get at the underlying requirements, and I would like to think that after 25 years I’ve built up a decent muscle for doing just that.

I’m struggling a bit with your request here because it really does feel to me like what you are looking for is a set of incremental improvements on top of Dorico’s existing bar repeat regions feature, but you are quite adamant that you think of it as completely separate, or even more closely allied to multi-bar rests than bar repeat regions.

While there is a certain amount of overlap between how consolidated bar repeats and multi-bar rests work, in musical terms they’re pretty far apart: one, after all, is concerned with playing the same pattern over a period of several bars, while the other one is about not playing anything at all over a period of several bars.

If I may take one more crack at summarising your requirements here, in terms of how we might extend Dorico’s existing functionality to satisfy them:

– In the full score, you would like to be able to replace the bar repeat symbol in the first bar in a bar repeat region with a box centred in the bar that shows the number of bars to be played, e.g. “Play 6 bars”, with the following bars showing bar repeat symbols as normal.
– In the part, you would like to be able to replace a consolidated bar repeat region, where a bar repeat region appears as “a single bar” in the part with a bar repeat symbol and the number of bars shown above the staff, with a box centred in the bar that shows the number of bars to be played, e.g. “Play 6 bars”.

There are some further incidental details, such as you want the ability to control the font, size, style of the text and the box, and you want to be able to override the text region by region via Properties if need be. Otherwise, the requirements for displaying numbering above subsequent bars etc. in the full score are already satisfied by the existing functionality provided by bar repeat regions.

But fundamentally you are asking for a way to display a bar repeat region in the part as a consolidated bar that shows “Play n bars” instead of a bar repeat symbol, and to annotate a bar repeat region in the full score with some boxed text on the first bar.

If I’m misunderstanding your requirements, please tell me in which ways.

[dan.h.tillberg]

You’re reading a tone into my response which I didn’t intend, Dan, and I’m not in the business of disrespecting our customers. I’m sorry that I came across that way.
[Dan T]: I am still surprised how you can’t see this in your own post, but apology accepted.

As you work in software yourself, you’ll know that it can be difficult to separate your idea of how a problem should be solved from your understanding of its requirements. Many of our users without such experience will find it much harder to make that separation, and in general it’s much more common for us to be presented with a user’s idea of the solution rather than the underlying requirement. Of course, as the product manager with responsibility for understanding user requirements, it’s my job to unpick those requests and get at the underlying requirements, and I would like to think that after 25 years I’ve built up a decent muscle for doing just that.
[Dan T]: Part of this paragraph leads in to a larger discussion that is OT in this context, but I will send you some thoughts in a private message. But in terms of “separation of requirements”: in the thread start I describe what I think could be labeled “underlying requirements” in the “Rationale” section: 1) Support creation of drum parts that are clean and readable - for instance by avoiding long sequences of repeated information that does not contribute to anything but rather decreases readability and overview:ability (sorry for bad language) 2) support creation of drum parts that contains as few page turns as possible.

Then the next question will probably be: Ok so how could we meet these two “underlying requirements”? Then comes what I would like to call detailed requirements (or at least “a little bit more detailed”) on functionality that I would like to see as a user to make it possible to create clean and readable drum parts with as few page turns as possible. Here I propose the introduction of a easy and effective function that is customizable to make the drum parts look the way I as a writer would like them to look. I would still call these “requirements” (even if perhaps not “underlying”)! But not you?

I’m struggling a bit with your request here because it really does feel to me like what you are looking for is a set of incremental improvements on top of Dorico’s existing bar repeat regions feature, but you are quite adamant that you think of it as completely separate, or even more closely allied to multi-bar rests than bar repeat regions.
[Dan T]: I am not sure that “adamant” is an adequate choice of words here, but English it not my native language… But yes, I think of this as an “extended multimeasure rest” functionality, especially since the proposed workaround from Dorico in this thread Jazz/pop/rock drum part considerations - #21 by dan.h.tillberg was based on manipulating multimeasure rests. Anyway, “thinking of” a functionality “in terms of” is not really the same thing as stating a solution, is it? For me it is just a clarification that what I ask for is close to what already exists; and exactly for clarification and understandability purposes. In the requirements overview I have asked for the ability to mark a region in the score as a “multimeasure play” area, meaning that it is clear in the score what is reflected in the drum part, and that I as a writer decide what areas that should be of this type. Again: do you consider this to be a solution proposal rather than requirements?

While there is a certain amount of overlap between how consolidated bar repeats and multi-bar rests work, in musical terms they’re pretty far apart: one, after all, is concerned with playing the same pattern over a period of several bars, while the other one is about not playing anything at all over a period of several bars.
[DanT]: OK, I guess that way of “thinking of it” is as good as any other as I wrote earlier.

If I may take one more crack at summarising your requirements here, in terms of how we might extend Dorico’s existing functionality to satisfy them:

– In the full score, you would like to be able to replace the bar repeat symbol in the first bar in a bar repeat region with a box centred in the bar that shows the number of bars to be played, e.g. “Play 6 bars”, with the following bars showing bar repeat symbols as normal.
[DanT]: No, this is not what I have tried to explain. I want to mark a certain area in the score as a “multimeasure play region” (or “consolidated bar repeat region” if that better suits the discussion). The corresponding section in the drum part will then be condensed to something that I can configure it to show. Text boxes are clear and concise and would be my first choice, but I know others having e. g. wavy lines instead. This is up to the writer to define.

As a conductor/band leader, it should be obvious that a certain region is a region of this kind, then I know that the drummer only sees a “Play X” instruction for that region (or whatever I have configured it to be).

Very important is that I need to be able to have the freedom as a writer to decide which regions that should be of this kind and which should be written in another way.

I do not feel extremely comfortable to let the program condense bar repeats into “Play X” regions. I would like to be in control as a writer: if I mark 17 bars as one-bar repeats than this is what should be displayed in the part as well. There might be reasons for doing this. The writer is the one to decide. So to be usable, I would like to differentiate between marking a region as a ‘region to condense in the part’, or a section of bar repeats (of any kind), or a slash region. These are different things in my world.

– In the part, you would like to be able to replace a consolidated bar repeat region, where a bar repeat region appears as “a single bar” in the part with a bar repeat symbol and the number of bars shown above the staff, with a box centred in the bar that shows the number of bars to be played, e.g. “Play 6 bars”.
[DanT]: Well see the comment just above, I think that answers this. But yes, to save space in the drum part, the result should not initially take more horizontal space than necessary (of course, if I then could get the opportunity to change the width, that would not hurt but I guess it is not really necessary if the general note spacing settings works so well as they do today also for this kind of “measure”).

There are some further incidental details, such as you want the ability to control the font, size, style of the text and the box, and you want to be able to override the text region by region via Properties if need be. Otherwise, the requirements for displaying numbering above subsequent bars etc. in the full score are already satisfied by the existing functionality provided by bar repeat regions.
[DanT]: Yes as stated, I would like to define a style myself that is then used when marking a region this way. As mentioned, I think there are very different ideas on taste and design here and that should be left for the writer to decide. We want to leave our works to our customers in a way that we feel is what we want it to look like. Just as you do.

But fundamentally you are asking for a way to display a bar repeat region in the part as a consolidated bar that shows “Play n bars” instead of a bar repeat symbol, and to annotate a bar repeat region in the full score with some boxed text on the first bar.
[DanT]: Again, not sure that it has to be “first bar”. The underlying requirement in this case is that it should be clear and obvious to the score reader that a specific region is condensed in the part. It is certainly an advantage if the score reader can see more exactly what the part reader sees (e. g. the number of measures condensed and why not also the text marking). The clearer the better.

If I’m misunderstanding your requirements, please tell me in which ways.
[DanT]: Well I hope it is clearer now.

[dan.h.tillberg]

@JesterMusician well yep I have seen this but it is actually not very usable in its current condition. My feeling is that this poor notation is causing more confusion than it is there to solve.

Perhaps the largest objection to this functionality is that it is based on letting the program condense bar repeats into condensed “measures” which is problematic for multiple reasons. First, it is a mix-up of two different things (see below) which actually might degrade the usability of bar repeats. Secondly, I can not decide per area what it should look like, and that is important as I see it. Thirdly, it is not configureable at all when it comes to how I want it to look and write, which you also mention.

I would like to be in control as a writer: if I mark 17 bars as one-bar repeats than this is what should be displayed in the part as well. There might be reasons for doing this. The writer is the one to decide. So to be usable, I would like to differentiate between marking a region as

• a ‘region to condense in the part’ (“multimeasure play”), or
• a section of bar repeats (of any kind), or
• a slash region, or
• a note region (regular notes or rhythmic notation).
  These are different things in my world.

Also as it is pushed in right now, there is as I can see from you post a global setting, meaning that either all your one-bar repeat areas are condensed, or none is. As a writer I expect to be able to decide which regions should be bar repeats, which should be slash notated and which should be condensed with a play instruction.

So sorry, this is not good enough for a long list of reasons.

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

Secondly, I can not decide per area what it should look like, and that is important as I see it.

+1. For this method to work, there really needs to be individual control over the regions, so the user can select and choose which regions to combine, and which to leave written out. Personally, I probably wouldn’t combine any behind ensemble passages, but would use this behind a soloist. If parts are bound accordion-style, it’s pretty important to try to keep the drum part to 3 pages so they don’t have to turn a page while playing, so this would be useful and isn’t simply an archaic hand copyist’s shortcut.

It does seem like using individual single repeat bars could currently serve as a potential workaround in a part if you don’t care about the score. The count is wrong obviously so if used it has to be added as text or a barline-attached line, but the single bar repeat regions won’t contract.

I just did a quick search and I can’t seem to find an example using this condensed drum notation in the part and written out notation in the score. Obviously they must exist, but I’m not immediately finding an example to see how it’s handled. Neither Ken Williams nor Clinton Roemer address this condensed style of notation at all in either of their books despite a lot of content on drum parts, so I assume it is not a technique either of them endorses.

Henry Mancini’s Sounds and Scores has the following on page 166, but he doesn’t address the score layout issue either:

I guess ideally, I’d like to have this in the score …

… but have it condensed down to “Play 8” in the part. Starting the section in the score with a bar repeat just seems wrong to me as you haven’t established what’s repeating. (Plus the count is wrong as previously mentioned)

A pile of slashes isn’t really desirable in the score either as they take up too much room horizontally, affect the spacing of other staves, and actually are harder to follow as your eyes sort of glaze over staring at them. A bar of slashes (or the initial groove) followed by bar repeats is preferrable. Both Ken Williams and Clinton Roemer use variations on this method in parts as below, as do most better copyists:

KW

CR

If a bar of slashes followed by 7 bars of bar repeats in the score could be on case-by-case basis somehow condensed down to a simple “Play 8,” that would be a great feature!

[dan.h.tillberg]

I agree to most of what you say. The fact that this kind of notation is not used so much in the “large houses” might simple be because the software support has always been so bad. Finale was not good at this either, but had some workarounds that actually worked far better than trying to do this in Dorico.

All drummers I have asked about this (perhaps 10?) think that “Play 9” is better then having 9 bars with repeat marks or slashes. Also all acknowledge the fact that they would like to be able to not having to turn page during a piece if possible since they very rarely have any pauses long enough for this. They are at work all the time and if page turns are necessary they have to do it while trying to keep playing without a hand or having multiple notestands (or even taping pages to hihat or cymbal stands, yep seen that).

They only thing I do not agree with you about is that in your example just below the Mancini example, I would absolutely not want these 8 bars to be condensed. If I write one slash bar and 7 repeat bars, this is how it should be in the part as well, and as mentioned sometimes there might be reasons for doing exactly that (I can think of several).

That is why I am looking for a marking in the score that is specific for this “condensing” purpose, so that I have the freedom as a writer to get it the way I feel is appropriate for the purpose of my work.

[dan.h.tillberg]

Btw the “KW” example that you stated is a great example of why the existing Dorico way of doing this leads to ambiguous results. The “2” and “4” above the bar repeat marks would in Dorico’s current function mean that behind the first repeat bar mark there are actually 2 bars to be played, and in next there are 4. However this is likely not what is ment here, these numbers are simply bar numbering within the period. This would be essentially impossible to sight read correctly.

[FredGUnn]

@dan.h.tillberg

They only thing I do not agree with you about is that in your example just below the Mancini example, I would absolutely not want these 8 bars to be condensed. If I write one slash bar and 7 repeat bars, this is how it should be in the part as well, and as mentioned sometimes there might be reasons for doing exactly that (I can think of several).

Sure, there are lots of reasons to have that, first of all that’s the only way we really have of doing this now, LOL! Drummers need to immeditately see the phrasing. No one wants to count a zillion bars of slashes. Placing the number over the final repeat bar makes the phrase structure instantly clear so the drummer doesn’t need to count:

If I remove the bar of slashes at H and make the entire section bar repeats so they may be consolidated, I end up with this in the score, which is wrong:

If this is to be a new feature, there has to be a mechanism to have both parts and score be correct.