I want to start by saying I’m aware of Dorico’s feature making it impossible to have a fermata and a breath mark at the same rhythmic position. We use this feature to our advantage a lot for recit.-like passages, so the orchestra can have one measure with a fermata, while the singers can have all so…

I do not see the problem. Just put the breath mark/ check mark on a subsequent rhythmic hash mark. [fermataBreath]

Hi Derrek, Thanks for your reply. I should have been clearer — we don’t want the fermata to be shown in the vocal staff, only on the orchestra staves. Typically adding a breath mark at the same place as the fermata allows this to happen. But in this file, that override doesn’t occur as expected, an…

[image] JoshDev: Thanks for your reply. I should have been clearer — we don’t want the fermata to be shown in the vocal staff, only on the orchestra staves. You can enter it as a local mark shift-h , alt-enter. and then alt-click into any other stave you want it.

Perhaps I am mistaken, I don’t believe fermatas can be created as local marks. The issue isn’t with the fermata being global, but rather the normal system of overriding the global fermata on one staff (adding a breath mark at the same rhythmic location) doesn’t work in this particular file.

Sorry, I thought you meant the breathe mark. (Obviously a fermata has to apply to every stave)

All good! I appreciate your help regardless.

[image] JoshDev: we don’t want the fermata to be shown in the vocal staff, only on the orchestra staves. The only way I know to have no fermata in one staff is to drag it outside the page in Engrave mode: [CleanShot 2024-05-05 at 20.26.49]

I’d be interested to know how that is performed.

[image] Derrek: I’d be interested to know how that is performed. Here you go. I would say it sounds as expected… ? :slight_smile: [Edit: sorry, I realised just now that maybe you mean how it is performed live by humans? Because indeed the singer not having a fermata would not wait very lon…

So the singer can reach the C# while the accomp is still holding the E chord? How long do we suppose the accomp holds the chord after the singer reaches the C#?

Fermatas / Breath Marks Override not Working as Expected

Dorico

dspreadbury March 4, 2025, 10:51am 17

If you want help, @chrisabelen, your best bet is to cut down the project to the smallest chunk that exhibits the problem and post it here. Please see this (hopefully helpful) sticky thread: