As a Sibelius user, I created symbols which were trills with accidentals. I also sometimes use the ordinary trill symbol.
When exporting as MusicXML and reading into Dorico, no trill symbols show up, including the ordinary trill symbol.
Any ideas what’s wrong? Is this a missing capability?
I read that Dorico doesn’t have trill symbols with accidentals per se – but displays them with accidentals by computing the context. That doesn’t work for music that’s not in a key. Any way to create trill symbols with a chosen accidental?
EDIT: I looked at the xml and Sibelius writes trills as “notation”/”notation-other”/Trill, while Dorico exports trills as “ornaments”/”trill-mark”
How does that export to MusicXML? Does it include any indication of the trill interval? I’m guessing probably not because Dorico considers it a property and not an actual distinct symbol. Can anything like this be read from MusicXML? In other words, is there any way to port trills from Sibelius to Dorico?
One thing I would try, (if I had Sibelius) was to open the XML in a text editor, and simply change “notation”/”notation-other”/Trill to “ornaments”/”trill-mark” and see how that imports
One thing I would try, (if I had Sibelius) was to open the XML in a text editor, and simply change “notation”/”notation-other”/Trill to “ornaments”/”trill-mark” and see how that imports
That’s not how XML works. Those elements occur in different places in the “measure” tree and you also have to account for other sub-elements that may be mixed in there. Plus hand-editing is not feasible for the hundreds of Sibelius files I need to convert. I’m a programmer and I could potentially write some code to automate the process, but I have to at least try to preserve the trill interval information that’s in the Sibelius file.
MusicXML specification for trill marks is found here
with an example here
If I understand you correctly, it seems Sibelius is not using the correct syntax, so maybe you have to search for a howto to export from Sibelius Trills with the correct syntax.
Maybe Sibelius has a plugin with better export results?
Unfortunately the MusicXML “standard” is currently interpreted differently by every program. So not only would Sibelius have to export the information, but Dorico would also have to understand and interpret it correctly.
Is it possible to create a custom trill/accidental symbol in Dorico by combining two glyphs? I’ll try to figure it out myself if so, I just want to get a sense of whether it’s possible.
The next question is whether such a symbol can be specified in an XML file for import, for example if I could specific some code for the user-defined symbol in the XML file, although I seriously doubt that’s possible.
I’ll explain my goals. I wrote my own software to play back scores and add expression. I export a file (currently from Sibelius) as MusicXML, then feed that into my program. So to use trills/accidentals with Dorico, I need a symbol (ideally Dorico would treat it as an ornament so it’s attached to specific notes) that exports in an identifiable way into the MusicXML so my program can recognize it. Perhaps I don’t need to create my own symbol to have trills with accidentals show up in the XML. I haven’t explored any option with Dorico yet, so I don’t know how any of my options would look in the XML.
Dorico exports the trill-mark tag, but doesn’t seem to specify the interval. However, it does specify an accidental, which goes some way.
Dorico does import trill marks from XML, so that suggests that Sibelius isn’t exporting them correctly.
Dorico is highly ‘semantic’, so it knows what symbols mean. You can’t create a custom symbol and imbue it with custom meaning that would get exported correctly. You can create a playing technique, and you might be able to configure your program to look for whatever XML is generated by that PT, but it wouldn’t be a trill.
EDIT: I took a look at how Dorico exports the trill with an accidental and it looks good for sending to my software (after I modify it slightly).
ORIGINAL:
Yes as previously mentioned I found the free Dolet plugin which exports the trill as an “ornament” which is also how Dorico reads it, so that gets me partly there. As far as “correctly” exporting them, what @Janus says makes sense: there’s not really any “correct” way to do it because every program interprets MusicXML differently.
I don’t want Dorico to see any meaning in a special modified trill mark because I’m not asking Dorico to play it back. Sibelius exports custom symbols, using the name that you gave them when you created it. That’s what I’m looking for Dorico to do.
Actually, Sibelius exports custom symbols as a “notation” rather than an “ornament”, which is not ideal, because MusicXML is ambiguous about what note a “notation” attaches to. I would prefer it if Dorico exported a custom symbol as an “ornament” because those are attached directly to notes.
I wrote most of the code over 6 years ago, but I’m reviewing it now. Maybe I can take a “notation” in the XML and identify which specific note it attaches too.
