Dear Dorico Team,
Thank you for the new Dorico update and for the additional options for guitar notation.
I’m sure these will help many guitarists, especially when they need to follow a specific layout convention.
However, for me personally, the biggest challenge with the notation of guitar bendings has not been addressed yet:
If I could make one wish that would greatly simplify bend notation, it would be the ability to create a post-bend where the target pitch is shown as a small (grace-sized) note after the main note.
This is, for example, also the standard way of displaying it in Guitar Pro:
As far as I can see, the only current option is to create a grace note before the beat.
I personally find it unfortunate that the actually fretted note is then displayed as the small note. On the other hand, it also changes the rhythmic interpretation, since it will be rather interpreted as a pre-bend than a post-bend.
I know that Dorico has a post bend option as well. However, in this case it is not possible to continue the bending from the target pitch, which makes it quite limiting in practice. Especially bend + release at a specific metric position happens very often.
I managed to create the desired notation with a bit of manual fiddling (Create a grace note before the next note, hide the stem, and then apply the bend.)
As you can see in the short video it is very easy to adjust the pitch without going to the Properties panel, and you can easily attach another bend or release to the target pitch.
However, the workaround also has some downsides: It takes time, sometimes interferes with the next beat, spacing is negatively affected, and playback also does not really work.
For me, an ideal workflow would be something like this:
Press a shortcut for Bend → the bend is created (maybe even via a popover with the interval?).
Then - if necessary - adjust the pitch of either the starting note or the target note. If you want to add another bend, this is also possible without problems.
I’m happy to hear if others would also be interested in this or if I’m missing a current setting or feature in Dorico.
Greetings from Germany,
Johannes