I am a long-time Finale user who has switched to Dorico in the last month. I have completed several large projects and am converting some old ones. I have found the forum, manual, and videos very helpful - but I cannot find a solution to this issue:
There are times when I want to show explicit rest values instead of single bar rests in my projects. When writing in 7/4, say, the simple whole rest Dorico displays in a single-bar rest is not as helpful as showing, for example, a dotted quarter rest followed by to regular quarter rests. The later notation helps players know the rhythmic split in the measure rest and reminds them they are in 7/4. I have tried to enter exploit rests in such measures, but Dorico replaces them with the single-bar rests with a whole rest symbol. I cannot find an Engraving option that covers this either - and I find nothing in the manual or forum. Does anyone know how to do this?
The keys represent: o - enable/disable Force Duration , - enable/disable entering rests y - enter rest (aka note without specific pitch) 6 - quarter note 8 - whole note
Also, once you’ve done one, you can Alt-click it to new locations. (And you often only need to copy “one half” of any durational split, because the other half will be automatic.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear… My issue concerns single-bar rests. Regardless of the subdivision I have defined (e.g. [3+2+2} for my 7/4 example) Dorico converts any bars without notes to bars with a whole rest. I can force them to be bars with an H-beam and a “1”, but this is no better. Dorico handles bars with notes in the correctly - my only concern is for bars with only rests.
If you truly want to override the standard-practice generic bar rests, you still use Force Durationo plus Rest, to enter the rests you want. Here’s an example in 5/4, with the second bar “forced” to display dotted-half and half rests in the second measure:
This is getting closer. I can use this technique to enter the correct rests in my score - but the individual parts still show one-bar rests with a whole rest symbol. Is there a way to force this into the parts too?
I confess: I’m stumped. This is my first time ever trying to force non-bar rests, and I assumed that what was in the score layout would also appear in the parts layouts. Hmm…
The only way I found to keep the forced rests in my 5/4 example was to set Layout Options > Players > Bar Rests and Multi-bar Rests to “None” — unacceptable, of course, since everyplace with more than a bar in a row of rest would now remain separate.
Perhaps someone else here who’s experienced with making this behavior happen will chime in while I keep searching.
While we wait for someone else to offer insight, let me ask a question about one comment, @ljdeutsch:
Do you really think your players need that reminder? (Asked in a more joking way: “If you have to remind your players they’re in 7, should they be…?”)
Assuming this can be made to work meaningfully, it means that the single-measure forced rests in the score layout need to be reflected in the part, but the moment you have two or more measures of rest in a row, that “reminder” would have to be superseded. (If not, it would come at the expense of consolidated multi-bar rests, which would actually be a much bigger problem for keeping track as a performer!)
I’m not trying to pose a “hard-core-assault” kind of argument here, just thinking through the benefits and costs of what you’re after.
At least I now know I am not going crazy! I believe this is all a product of how Dorico teats multi-bar rests. In Finale, the default is to only convert 2-bar and greater strings of blank bars to multiyear rests. Dorico does this with single bars of rests. There are notation options on how Dorico displays these (e.g. with a H-beam and number or without) but they still get converted to muti-bar rests of length one in player parts.
I definitely want the flexibility to show these explicit rhythmic values in the parts. In one sense, this is the first thing I have found that Finale does but Dorico does not do, which challenges me as a Mathematician (my day job).
I definitely appreciate the fact that several people have already responded to my post with ideas - this is definitely a plus!
You can create a new notehead set containing a notehead for a quarter note that looks like a quarter rest. In a 7/8 measure that you want to appear in the score and part as a dotted quarter rest followed by two quarter rests, enter a dotted quarter note at the start of the measure, change the notehead for that note to use the new notehead set, suppress its playback and hide its stem in engrave mode:
If (for whatever reason) you need to show the explicit rests while keeping the multi-bars consolidated, use the split multi-bar rest option (the split point should be entered or moved to anywhere in the bar but the first downbeat). To be able to use the split multi-bar rest option you must be in engrave mode at least for the first time, but this will create a sign post that can be copied and pasted (using alt+click for example) in write mode too.
John, that is a creative solution. However, I think I have found a better one!
Given my thought that this is actually a problem with multi-bar rests, I found this topic on the forum: “specify number of empty bars before multi bar rest is used”.
Although there was no idea how to do this, someone suggested inserting a blank “Shift-X” text into the middle of the problem bar. When I tried this in the core, the parts worked correctly, displaying the force-value explicit rests I had entered in the score (along with a shift-X text of " "). This solves my problem for now.
I think a more elegant solution would be for Dorico to have a notation option to allow single-bar rests NOT to be converted to multi-bar rest format. Perhaps this can be added in a future release.
Thanks to everyone who suggested solutions! Back to work…
