Brian Childers here. I’m a migrated Finale user. I must say, I have been super-impressed with Dorico, its power and functionality. After 35 years of FInale work, I have found it to be refreshingly powerful and adaptive. My primary musical work is with handbells. I write for a wide variety of instrumentation, but 50 percent or more of my composing is for Handbells. I also work for Handbell Musicians of America, the national organization created to support musicians in the US.
I’m sure this has been brought to your attention by other bell composers. One feature that’s essential for our world is the creation of a pitches used chart (Bells Used Chart). In Finale, it was a plug in which scanned all of the music and created a staff (or staves) at the beginning of the score listing all of the pitches used (with different staves for different noteheads -handchimes use different noteheads in the handbell world.). Adding this functionality would be HUGE for bell composers, especially if it were dynamic and updated as new bells were added to the score…Finale’s version wasn’t dynamic and had to be re-run if any notes were changed. I would love the opportunity to discuss the possibility further with you in the future.
Thanks for an amazing product and for your consideration!
I definitely don’t mind a new member making a very polite request. (Even if we have heard it before.) A refreshing break from some of the other attempts at contact lol.
I know it’s nowhere near the final result you’re looking for, but one thing can be done : select your handbells staff content (the whole thing), and put the bottom panel to show the keyboard. There should be a blue dot over every key that is used, giving you an exact map of the notes used in that selection. This trick is used to find an ambitus too…
Like Brian, I’m also very new at Dorico. Marc, your suggestion is useful. For the “black” notes, is there any way to determine if the blue dot refers to flat or sharp other than the key? I’m thinking other accidentals.
You can choose how to express the accidentals based on the key of your music. The handbells, of course, are labeled with both the sharp and flat version of the pitch.
Thanks, Derrek, but that doesn’t really address my question. Notes on the keyboard that are part of the key signature are obvious. But, say in the key of C, the F# key is marked. Is it F# or Gb. I’d have to scan through my score to determine which (or both) it should be. It would be nice to have Dorico label the note to identify its intent.
In the key of C, I’d think F# is more probable than Gb, because it is the leading tone to G, the fifth degree in C… But of course, probabilities can be wrong!
True, Marc, but my point is that, in a given score, you have the possibility of a note being used both as a flat and as a sharp. For the handbell used chart, identifying any note used both as a flat and a sharp is important. It is generally shown in parentheses (G#Ab). in note form.
While some day Dorico may do that automatically, at present it is mostly a manual operation. Make up a complete handbell list and then eliminate those that do not show up on the keyboard diagram.
I already do that. But it can be a cumbersome, time-consuming process. Having the keyboard show what notes are used is quite helpful. Because I’m new at Dorico, I don’t know how the software determines what notes to mark on the keyboard. I assume it plows through the score and identifies what notes are presented, then marking them on the displayed keyboard. I’m simply noting that, assuming the software can determine from the score what the flavor of each note is (b,nat.,#), some way could be presented on the keyboard to display such. Only just a thought.
That’s true - if the piece you have has only one key. I’m working on a piece right now that has five keys in eight pages. I’ll still have to look through it to find the specific sharps & flats and any accidentals within those keys.
As one who has played, conducted and arranged for handbells, I cannot help thinking that if the players read music they will know which bells to pick up. The note name(s) being stamped on the bell handle.
I direct and play and write music for a bronze-level group. Yes, the players are all capable of recognizing and playing notes correctly. But that doesn’t address the need to build the bells used charts for the music I write. That is the focus of the observations and questions I’ve been writing.
For those of us who still have access to Finale, I just export xml, import into Finale, create the chart, and export only the chart as an xml. It needs formatting on the Dorico side, but all the info is there. Takes less than a minute.
