Hello,
I found that fermatas could not be attached on grace notes.
If I attach a fermata on a grace note, the fermata is attached to the next normal note.
Is it intended behaviour?
Yes. Fermatas cannot be attached to grace notes.
I suppose you can create a new playing technique showing a fermata — I find it very useful to deal with fermatas that do not absolutely respond to the “proper fermata rules”.
Indeed, I find the current fermata structure restrictive. I often find myself caught between rules when setting organ music with many voices. One per staff is preferable, but when you have dense counterpoint it can be difficult to place the first fermata in the right spot. There’s also no way (other than this hack) to really place a fermata on, say, the melody line only to indicate an extended tenuto rather than a full stop.
I would think the ideal solution for the user would be twofold:
- An Alt-Enter option to affix the fermata independently to that staff only (and that specific rhythmic location).
- A toggle to have fermata affect playback or not (which I know is still future).
That seems a very elegant solution well in keeping with the current modus operandi.
I also request that it be possible to attach a fermata to grace note.
As usual I’m curious about the usage. I would consider writing a regular note and scaling it to grace note size. Where are you seeing this?
@Mark_Johnson Dorico did a great job of handling several of these as before the beat and before the bar line grace notes. Except for the fermatas, which are Playing Techniques.
One wonders why you don’t just enter normal notes and resize them to grace note size? (you an handle the bar length with a hidden time signature or hidden tuplets)
@Janus Good question. I actually did try that when these passages started but it proved impossible because of rhythmic overlaps that occur earlier. So I tried regular grace notes and was very impressed with how Dorico handled this:
This will be phenomenal in Chopin.
But yes, the first example could be handled as normal notes, but it was much easier as grace notes once I adjusted the note spacing for grace notes.
Thanks for the example! This confirms my thought that they would function as “regular” notes in a cadenza, rather than (non-metrical) grace notes.
Agreed. The smaller note size seems simply to “flag” (to the eye) that this is a cadenza passage serving to transfer the upper voice in the suspension-chain preceding it up three octaves (Ab2 to Ab5). So, by that analysis, the final Ab5 is the only “real” grace note, structurally dependent upon for its meaning (and presumably moving to after the fermata) G5.
Like @Janus, I’m curious about this, @John_Ruggero. Why didn’t a simple resize in the Properties Panel work? If you have the time, would you share a screenshot of what happens when you try it that way?
Sorry, @judddanby @Mark_Johnson I don’t know whether you mean the first or second example.
I agree that the first example (the one with the fermatas) could be handled as “regular” notes by changing the meter and using tuplets etc.
But I don’t see how the second example could be handled with an exact meter and/or tuplets since the small notes enter freely somewhere in between the large notes.
In any, case I found both cases much simpler to handle as grace notes.
@John_Ruggero, obviously my response-to-Mark paragraph was about the first example (with the fermatas).
Looking more closely at your second example I can see how that would be very tricky: a 32nd quintuplet followed by thirteen 64ths, etc. (BTW, are there fermatas in that second one that we’re not seeing in the screenshot? I would guess not, but your thread title had me directed in that way.)
Sounds like you’ve arrived at a good “hybrid approach” (resized “regular” notes when there are fermatas and grace notes in spots like your second example).
@judddanby Sorry, I missed who you were responding to.
There are no fermatas missing from the second example. I just brought up the second example because it set the stage for the fermata one, which comes after it. So it was simpler to do them all alike. Then I decided that even the fermata example was easier with grace notes. Except for a spacing issue, and the fermatas, which were not a big deal.
Dorico handles this situation extremely well. It would have been painful in Finale.
Couldn’t you just use open meter (X) for that one bar and use the different sizes noteheads and beam accordingly and then change back to actual meter and hide it in the next bar? That seems like the most straightforward way from where I’m seeing it.
@rodrigoruiz1988 Yes, that would also work. At some point I may try all three approaches to see which is the easiest.
For the developers: are there any plans to enable grace notes AFTER its main note?
I’m sure this would enormously complicate the internal spacing algorithms though …