Am I right in assuming that a hairpin cannot be assigned from a note in one staff to a note in another? And that one cannot start a hairpin from a rest?
I just ran into a problem assigning a swell (messa di voce) between the notes of the lower staff to those of the higher in the following measure (I am showing what it is supposed to look like, as corrected in Engrave mode):
If I assign the swell only to the left hand notes, I can’t move the peak to the appropriate notes in the right hand in Write mode. And I can’t assign the swell to the right hand because it doesn’t seem to be able to start with a rest.
This is not a big deal, since it can be accomplished in other ways, but I wanted to point out the issue if it is an issue. Often in piano music, dynamics move from one staff to the other.
Dorico 5 introduced an update to the way notations get input, allowing multi-staff input of notations without the caret being active.
Relatedly, there’s an option for whether notations get input at the positions of notes only, or any item (including rests) – for example, if you’ve selected an entire instrument family’s staves and want to add “ff” dynamics, but some instruments don’t have a note until the third beat: do you want the ff on the downbeat on all staves, even those that start with a rest? Or should it go at the earliest selected note entry on each staff?
tl;dr this is Dorico, try to assume there’s an option first, rather than assume it’s not possible
See here:
Also, in general, for grand staff instruments you’ll get better positioned, centered dynamics if you input them on/assign them to the top staff and have them positioned below the staff, rather than them belonging to the bottom staff and positioned above.
Couple of other useful links too, relevant to working with dynamics and how to move them around in Write mode (which is always better than only relying on adjusting their graphical lengths in Engrave mode)
Thanks for the solution, the valuable tips, and the information, Lillie. I am glad that this new option was added. Yes, I am trying not to use hand positioning in Engrave mode, as tempting as it is at times, and always asking about possible options that I might be unaware of.
