Feature requests: Alternative chords & flexible rehearsal marks

Dorico
1

I’ve already added my support to an earlier request for alternative chord symbols, and some detail on how I would like to be able to use them.

My new request is for the ability to add free-form rehearsal marks.

Jazz lead sheets typically use sequences like Intro, A, A’, B, A’'.

Personally when writing lead sheets for my bands, I prefer numbers A, A2, B, A3, simply because they are easier to say in a rehearsal, particularly here in Japan.

In written-out jazz arrangements for my piano students I usually combine these methods something like this:

Intro
Theme: A, A’, B, A’’
Comping: A2, A’2, B2, A’'2
Piano solo: A3, A’3, B3 and so on…

David.

2

You can do this presently. You can change the property of the suffix, and set the index so several in a row are all A.

3

Many thanks for your reply.

I played around with the index and suffix and I can see how this would work, however it’s probably more cumbersome than my current solution, which is to create the rehearsal marks as text objects. (Usually I start a project from a template which includes special objects with the formatting which I need, so I just have to move or copy them to the appropriate rhythm positions and edit the details.)

One point that I didn’t make quite clear in the original post was that I often use “Intro”, and sometimes “Intro2” and "Outro " as rehearsal marks and I know some musicians who use “Bridge”.

So, I’d still like to see a fourth option for Sequence Type which was freeform/custom ie fully flexible.

David.

4

Yes, that’s been requested before and I agree it would be nice. In the meantime, the workaround is to set your index to 2, which gives you a B, and add a suffix of “ridge”!

5

Nice! but not exactly the complete solution I’m hoping for in version 4.
The guy I referred to is a drummer, a fellow instructor and band-mate, and an early adopter of Apple devices, but as yet, as far as I know, still hand-writing his drum parts (which I have to say are far more readable than anything I could produce by hand these days)

6

Since there is no discernable sequence to your markers, why don’t you just use system text (shift-alt-x) and add a border?

7

Or better, define your own Paragraph Style that has a border built in, then assign a separate shortcut to that.

1 Like
8

There are always multiple ways around a problem in Dorico!
Every reply in the forum has taken me back to the manual to find features I hadn’t noticed.
Many thanks, David.

1 Like
9

“There’s more than one way to skin a……score!”