Hello.
I saw some discussion on hiding cautionary time signatures but the explanation about adding codas was a bit beyond me?!
I have some guitar music that will have time signature changes at the end of a system.
Is there a simple way to hide the cautionary time signature?
Thank you.
Paul.
Select the downbeat of the next measure, and press shift-R, coda. Then hide the coda symbol via the properties panel.
In engraving options, repeat markers, you will need to set the āmid system gapā to zero for codas.
The Dorico-approved way is to start a new flow. If you already have existing music after the time sig, you can use Write/Split Flow. You will likely then need to make quite a few adjustments in Layout Options/Page Setup/Flows to get the appearance the way you want. You will also probably want to set Layout Options/Indent First System to 0, then go to Engrave Mode and manually indent the first system of the piece. After that, change the bar numbering in your new flow to match the previous flow, then change the rehearsal letter index in the new flow. Iām not at my computer right now to check, but I seem to remember audio export is flow based too, so if you need to export the audio for a mockup, youāll need to make sure you know how to use some sort of WAV editor too.
(Yes, Danās method is way easier. Even easier would be to just select the cautionary and hit Hide, but the developers seem strongly against that.)
Thank you so much Dan and Fred
After a bit of detective work I tried Danās suggestion, and it is so easy when you know how.
Best wishes to you both and keep up the great work.
Seeya.
I realize this is a somewhat old thread, but this really needs a proper solution, not a hack. Hereās an example where a new flow would be an absurdity.
And logically the 4/4 at bar 51 should be inside the repeat barline.
Perhaps this kind of thing could be handled as part of enhanced intelligence for repeat structures? (Tie into 2nd ending and such)
Indeed. Thatās the way Iād prefer to see it because it is redundant outside the repeat bracket. And when you have a meter change in the middle of a system, you get an extra barline, which I find confusing, or at least undesirable.
Yes, hopefully some release in the not-so-distant future will address the whole list of quirks related to repeat structures, including built-in support for āPlay 1st X onlyā and things like that.
Another item I stumbled on today related to repeat structures is that you can enter dynamics for repeated sections (e.g. mp-ff meaning mp first time and ff second time), but the dynamics are not observed in playback.
That is not the meaning of that dynamic mark! It means start quiet, then suddenly get loud. Repeat dynamics are more commonly notated as p (f).
Regarding your initial post. Cautionary time signatures are unnecessary clutter and should be avoided.
In Dorico, correct. But in the wider world, the dash has often been used to indicate āvoltaā dynamic differences. Users are just going to keep making this same complaint as long as Dorico lacks this feature.
I donāt recall seeing this. Where do you see it like this? (OUP, Iām guessing.) I find it slightly confusing.
An interesting point of view I have not heard before. Certainly traditional engravings of scores and parts disagree.
But in general I do support the OP for some cases.
FWIW, this is how Iām accustomed to seeing dynamics for repeated sections too. Iām not sure Iāve come across p(f) before.
Brahms used pf to indicate āpoco forteā.
Iāve never seen p(f)
Iām certain I have NEVER seen that p(f) notation and Iāve been played in symphony orchestras, concert bands, jazz bands, combos, pit orchestras, and British style bands for over 50 years. And I have seen the p-f notation in ALL of those different contexts.
Regarding the extra barlines and the cautionary time signatures, yes, that is conventional in symphonic music and some concert band stuff. But not su much in commercial music. There is lots of talk on this forum about obscure pockets of notation like figured bass. To each his own, but we really do need to keep in mind where the mainstream is. I would think the mainstream (in terms of number of new notation projects) probably ranks something like this:
The classical rules should not dominate what the product can do.
If I wanted to make sure the musician started quiet and quickly got loud, Iād write mp<ff, with a very short hairpin. And if that wasnāt obvious enough, Iād put a āsub.ā over the hairpin. And if that still wasnāt obvious enough, Iād break the note into two tied pieces with Force Durations and indicate the timing exactly.
This is analogous to how the original Lassus Trombones was notated with the glisses written out chromatically so the player knew exactly the timing of the glisses
One needs to be careful to not generalize his/her own perspective, for all I know here in Germany your first two items (most prevalent according to you) play very little role, since there are no marching school bands in Germany, and in churches they use a standardized āGesangbuchāā¦
But then again, what do I knowā¦ 
I do, however, support the notion of having a notation option for these cautionary time signatures!
Cheers,
Benji
Do the schools not present shows or anything else that requires some scoring? The US (at least my part of the country) is more than a little obsessive about marching band, winter guard (aka drum line) and show choir. Because of rigorous copyright enforcement, many of the larger high schools actually employ staff arrangers to write custom music for their shows. And whereas academic study and much of the church work might be inclined to the free Musescore, Iād expect a staff arranger to strongly benefit from the advanced nature of Dorico.
Likewise, Americans canāt seem to get along in any church for very long, so our churches tend to be quite splintered, and many of them employ music directors who end up scoring something for each weekās services, rather than using some pre-packaged liturgy.
My intent wasnāt to be precise or to generalize globally. I was just trying to remind that much of the scoring that fits Dorico the best is in the commercial realm, and doesnāt always use the same conventions as classical engraving. Dorico has many options that make this very useful for different markets, but the treatment of time signatures seems to be lagging.
I agree. In the majority of cases, Iād have no objection (or even welcome) the cautionary time signatures, but there are definitely some cases where it should be possible to easily turn that off without a hack.
OTOH, I donāt ever like the extra barline that comes with time sig changes. I realize that is customary is some periods, but I donāt welcome it ever. I try to avoid all unnecessary marks.
Certainly in late-Renaissance/Early Baroque music, where music changes between a triple-time āsectionā and a duple section, then double barlines demarcate the change in the same way as occurs for time sig changes in later music. Itās been like that these last 400 years or so.
I am talking specifically about the superfluous barline as shown below:
That makes no sense at all to me. It looks messy and potentially confusing.
And in this particular case, it seems far more logical to have the meter mark INSIDE the repeated section.
Definitely +1 for me. I made a 5 page handout for my Improv class this morning and used 9 hidden Codas all just to hide cautionary time or key sigs. It would have been great to have been able to simply open up Notation Options and turn them off for that flow.
Nah. Here itās usually just an organ and the congregation singingā¦
There are school choirs and orchestras but not all/many schools have them, and they usually play published scores.
Same for music schools, writing special arrangements is definitely not the norm.
