I cannot make it work to force a rest duration with a drum set as instrument. The following instructions work for other instruments, but not drum set: Forcing the duration of notes/rests
Is this a bug?
In most cases it now works pretty much the same way on percussion as on pitched instruments, though it didn’t do so until Dorico 4. The help page you’ve linked to dates from Dorico 1, which presumably you’re not using. Which version of Dorico are you using?
I am using Version 4.1.10.1082 (Jun 21 2022)
Steps to Reproduce
- Create new project
- add single player
- select drum set (basic)
- add any time signature
- enable force (o) duration and rests (,)
- select any note duration shorter than the bar duration
- write into empty bar.
Expected Behaviour
forced duration should be shown.
Actual Behaviour
Nothing happens.
You may need to approach this slightly differently, Tim. In general the same rules apply to unpitched percussion as to pitched material, which means that you should navigate the caret to where you want the notes to appear and then input the notes there – you only need to worry about rests if Dorico doesn’t produce the expected grouping on its own (and again you should look at the options in Notation Options to see whether it’s possible to get the grouping you want by default).
If you find that the rests you have ended up with don’t look as you want them to, you can then use Force position and duration in the Properties panel to make an implicit rest into an explicit one, at which point you can change its duration in the same way you can a note, using the numeric values.
Thank you Daniel, this approach works. I didn’t know about the force position and duration option until now. Would it make sense to have the behaviour where selecting the break, enabling force duration and selecting the duration enables force position and duration automatically and sets the right duration?
That should happen, in fact, once you’ve got a rest other than a bar rest selected, I think.
I’m struggling to divide a whole bar’s rest into individual beats, so the drummer can see where certain pauses are, using the above method. Have I missed something…?
Do you want to show a fermata on a certain beat in an empty bar? You’ll need to input at least one explicit rest. Show the caret, move it to the desired beat, and type:
, for rest input,
o for force duration,
6 for a quarter (or whatever rhythmic value), and
Y (or any letter A~G) to input the rest.
If you’ve already got the fermata on a note, it will show in the drums on the same beat as the other instruments when there is a rest there. The other rests in the bar will handle themselves. I find {View > Note And Rest Colors > Implicit Rests} very helpful.
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Hey Mark, many thanks for your reply.
I’ve followed your instructions to the letter (it was pretty much what I’d already been trying), but Dorico is still refusing to input the rest (although I can see it, at the penultimate stage, as shown in the attachment). I’m using Elements, if that makes any difference…
Ah, is this a percussion kit? Try it in galley view, where the instruments are separate.
(Someone pls correct me if I’m mistaken; I am away from my Dorico computer today.)
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It’s a drum kit. Still no joy in galley view 
The caret’s moving to the next beat, as if the rest’s been entered… but it hasn’t.
I’ve sussed it (and should have done ages ago) - I entered a note, forced position/duration of one of the resulting rests, and was able to manipulate what I needed from there. I’m a doofus.
Thanks again Mark 
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I don’t think you’re a doofus at all, Gary. Indeed, I would go so far as to say Dorico is actively unhelpful here. As you’ve found you can’t input an explicit rest in a percussion kit – you can only take an existing implicit rest and tell Dorico to make it explicit.
I revisited this topic with my colleague Andrew (who did all of the hard work on our percussion notation, among many other parts of the program!) and we came to the conclusion that we should really allow this in future, so it’s on our backlog for the future.
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Ah, perhaps not on this occasion, Daniel, but trust me, I have an enormous catalogue of evidence (going back several decades) supporting the doofus argument. Nevertheless, you’re too kind.
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I am having this exact problem. I have a large score (concert band with soloists) and I have some measures in 3/4 where I need to indicate a hold on beat two. For the non-drum-kit players, the forced duration feature works perfectly and I can create a bar with three explicit quarter rests, placing the fermata over the second one.
No matter what I try, I cannot do this with any of the players that have drum kits. I can’t even copy one of the nice instrumental player parts to a drum kit - the result is always the dreaded whole rest and no fermatas.
Given that this was an issue many Dorico versions ago, I am surprised it still does not work in 5.1.5. Any clever work-arounds out there?
I interpret Daniel’s post above to imply the following workaround: Put a temporary note in the bar where you want the fermata, so that you see a rest on the right beat with the fermata. When you force that rest, it will stay there when you delete the temp note.
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I think this solves my problem. However, I still notice that if I have created one correct bar, I cannot always copy it to another drum kit staff. Often I need to repeat this process for each staff. I believe I can make this work - but it is much more trouble than I would have thought, given how well Dorico seems to handle many other things. I wonder if drum kit writing is a general problem in Dorico…
I just tried selecting an explicit rest and Alt-clicking it to the same beat in another percussion kit, and it worked for me.
{View > Note And Rest Colors > Explicit Rests} really helps.
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I tried some experimenting. I believe copying these forced-rest measures from one drum kit player to another only works if the two drum kits are identical. Since I need to add custom instruments at times, this seems to upset copying between staves.
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