I’m not finding a way to align the swing notation (top line) with its corresponding position in the triplets (the offbeats should align with the last triplet in each case.)
Voice column offset doesn’t do it. Nudging in Engrave doesn’t do it. Can it even be done in Dorico? If so, how would you do it?
I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that you will need to use some awful combination of hidden tuplets to get the result that you are after.
Someone else may have the answer for you though!
I’m just curious: is this something that occurs regularly? I don’t remember ever seeing this in any score.
Thinking out loud…. Maybe use a hidden 12/8 (but you may have to treat the triplets differently….)
— Jim
Looking at this again, I used a hidden 12/8 with some oddball tuplets. For the snare, I used 3:3 to force the triplet number. For the cymbal, I used the ratios as shown and hid the brackets and numbers as shown in the properties. I had to use a forced duration or two with the ties.
Swing Thing.dorico (1.5 MB)
— Jim
An alternative that might be more readable into the second measure…
Edit: A little simpler and better aligned.
Swing Thing.dorico (1.4 MB)
This is a representation of the “Elvin groove” - familiar to jazz folks, especially fans of John Coltrane. It was an innovation of Elvin’s, to superimpose the traditional New Orleans “second line” rhythm (a/k/a the Bo Diddley groove, which also can be described as “clave”) over a swing triplet substrate. The top line would ordinarily be in the bass drum - notating it as a mix of dotteds and whole quarters shows where it came from.
In a kit, where sn and bd share a downstem “voice,” it would be cleaner to notate the bd as eighths to show where they line up. That way, it shows unusual groupings of 5-4-5-4-3-3…which is reality what it is. This is an illustration of the inadequacies of conventional vs swing notation… in a perfect world, they could co-exist.
Wow, this is it, totally. The tuplets account for the actual math going on… bravo!
I’m totally aware of Elvin and this style. I’m just not familiar with notating it this way, with the triplets shown as eighths without accounting for the incorrect math, so to speak. Are there scores out there that do it this way?