I’m trying to make basic music theory worksheets in Dorico for the first time, and I’m running into this limitation really hard for the first time. Not being able to cautionary clefs/key sigs/meter sigs has driven me back to Sibelius for these tasks.
In creating a worksheet full of very short drills such as spelling intervals or chords, short harmonic or contrapuntal writing, it’s way too tedious to make each of those a separate flow, since a single sheet might have 20 or 30 flows, and there’s no way to easily put one flow after another in a horizontal line. Yes, I’m aware this can all be done, but it’s incredibly painful compared to just hiding the darn cautionary.
I love what Daniel and team have done, but sometimes this dogmatic attitude drives me away. Please understand that there are completely reasonable uses of your software that you’re not thinking of when you make it and that users expect of professional software. I really don’t care that you think I shouldn’t “need” to hide key signatures because of the very clever Flow system. The fact is that I do need to hide them, and Dorico fails to provide that facility.
I would argue that it’s not dogma, but rather design. We are trying to be considered and careful about the way we approach musical semantics, and are resistant to solutions that don’t have musical semantics at their heart. I’m certainly not saying that producing this kind of exercise sheet is not a valid use case for Dorico, but I’m still not convinced that a “hide cautionary” option is the right solution to achieve it.
Hi Daniel,I’ve probably misunderstood you. Are you saying you’re in favour of a “special exercise sheet” template that automatically hides cautionary symbols as that would be a better approach than giving users the opportunity to hide cautionary symbols?
I did have an instance where I wanted to re-state an existing time signature on a new line, without having a cautionary. I was already using flows for larger sectional divisions, so couldn’t use flows at that point. I’ll see if I can find it.
Dear David,
Think creative! The dev team has proved how hard and nice they think about everything. I suppose you know that, using different flows, no cautionary clefs and time sig. appear. The actual flow handling makes it difficult and cumbersome to use like that. Why not change the flow handling, in order to make it very easy to split flows and never question that choice again?
I’m just a user, trying to guess what that amazing team has to offer ^^
Hi Marc. Thanks as always for the reply. Believe me, I am every bit as in awe of the team as you are.
I’m currently working my way through a book on melody written in the 50’s. To get around the issue of cautionary symbols, I’m using separate flows (as advised). I’m on page 21 and so far there have been 31 Figures and 18 exercises that I’ve notated - so 49 Flows in total. However, as the Figures sometime contain multiple examples making the same point but in different keys and time signatures, and the exercises always do, even though I’m using separate flows to avoid cautionary symbols, there are already 137 cautionary symbols across the 49 flows. So, if I was to ensure there were no cautionary symbols, I would now be on Flow 186. Just 21 pages in.
There isn’t a cautionary symbol anywhere in the book (188 pages).
It occurs to me that in this area of music theory, what my book refers to as “figures” (some call them “examples”) are every bit as discrete as movements in symphonies. The fact that they’re often just a line long is irrelevant. They are different pieces of music, making different points. I find myself questioning whether, when rules are being set, we’re comparing like with like.
I’ve been a regular on this thread - apologies to all if I"m banging the drum too much.
Dear David,
I perfectly understand what you’re talking about, and when on a deadline, it’s always a little frustrating not to have easy tools to achieve what we want… I don’t think you’re banging the drum too much, I mean the forum is THE place for feedback!
The one thing that has been asked to be hidden are rests. And the team was solid on their choice, they would not give a “hide rest” function. Then came Remove rests function, and only those who don’t read the manual still were asking for that feature (sorry guys, but… isn’t this the truth ?)
Now I am wondering how they will do it, but I’m quite confident they will find a clever solution for that too. I hope it will be sooner than later, for those who write this kind of musical litterature!
This is 2 flows - one per system. What’s the problem with this? If the cancellation naturals halfway through the top line are a problem, then why? I’d argue that, even in a book of exercises, they’re absolutely necessary. Mid-system, that is.
This is another iteration of the reply, “Why would you want to do X?”
It’s not an unfair question, and I’ve asked it of others who request things Dorico can’t do.
Nevertheless, the request isn’t going away. Usually “the Dorico way” is the way it should be done, and I’m as big an evangelist of that as anyone. But the challenge that the team has (which they are fully aware of, obviously) is to win over users of other software who have been accustomed to complete control of all elements in the score, even unconventional ones.
I rarely need to do things “incorrectly.” But sometimes I do. To truly suit the needs of the power user, Dorico has to allow these sorts of unconventional functions.
That being said, I am in full support of the way they have been doing this. The first presentation emphasizes “correct” notational conventions. Later updates gradually add specialized alterations, but somewhat hidden in submenus so a less experienced user isn’t tripped up by unconventional elements.
In the example you posted, what is there that Dorico can’t already do?
Look, I got rid of the C major key signature. I just deleted it. Then, for the sake of playback, I selected all the following notes on the line, set them to natural, then used the bottom properties panel to hide the accidentals.
I’m not saying that there isn’t a valid argument in the previous 112 posts; I’m saying that I don’t understand what you are arguing for.
I confess, even after reading your explanation three times, I have no idea how you did that. Where are the cautionary key signatures? Maybe I need more coffee.
Flow 1 comprises Exercises 1 and 2. As far as Dorico is concerned BOTH of them are in Ab major.
To make playback work correctly I selected the notes in exercise 2, hit 0 (for natural). I then did this:
Flow 2 comprises Exercises 3 and 4.
As the two systems are separate flows, there’s no cautionary at the end of the first system (Exercise 2).
I set layout options to allow flows to start on the same page.
I set rehearsal marks to use numbers, with no enclosures, and then adjusted the index of the rehearsal mark at the beginning of Exercise 3 so that it shows as “3” rather than “1” (new flow = rehearsal marks restart).
I used the barlines popover and “thick” to give the requisite barlines.
Again, I know that people think there is a need for more control over cautionaries, and that sometimes separate flows are not the easy answer, but I think your example demonstrates your point poorly and arguably reinforces the point that most of the time it is possible to do this sort of thing in Dorico 2.1 .
I’ve attached the file.
edit: Another way. Take the C Major cautionary accidentals, scale them to 0%, color them white. You’ll have a little bit of space left over, so go into Note Spacing and tighten it up.
This seems like a very messy workaround that would not stand up to substantial editing of the content of the flows.
Furthermore, my worksheet needs are to make 30-50 single-measure flows. Just setting them up would take me longer than to make the whole worksheet four times in Sibelius.
For what it is worth, I work for a small music publisher, and I needed this exact situation. I was creating a musical reading book, with over 120 multi measure examples, ranging from 4 measures to 13 measures.
Instead of fighting the idea of “hiding cautionary key signatures and time signatures” I gave in to the flows concept, with the added use of layouts. I created the flows based on the chapter I was working (i.e., I would add 10 flows for the 10 examples I needed in the current chapter). I added the music. I already had the default ‘Full Score’ layout which is where I did all of the writing of the musical examples. But then I created a separate ‘Book Layout’ layout. In this layout there were no master frame chains, etc. I created a series of blank pages, and would draw in the music frames where I needed them. I would then choose which flow I needed from the music frame drop down menu.
I will say, having worked for this publisher for about 20 years, this book came out looking better than anything else we had done together. It is a different way of thinking for sure. But I was 100% pleased with the results, and so was the author and the publisher.
