Hi people,
is there a way to quickly write a crescendo on a whole note that first starts in the second half of the note?
Often times I want the musicians not to start the crescendo too early. So in a 4/4 bar for example I want them to start the crescendo on beat 3. How can I write that quickly?
Thank you.
Hi sgt sax, welcome to the forum! You can input hairpins anywhere by using the caret (the orange line you use to input notes) - select the whole note, press Shift-N to show the caret, then move the caret to halfway along the note (e.g. press 7 to select the half note duration, then press Space to advance by a half note). Press < to start a hairpin, then press Space again to advance the caret and extend the hairpin. Then press Esc when you’re happy.
Alternatively, if you have shorter notes already elsewhere, you can select notes that last for a half note together, add a hairpin to them, then copy it to where you want by selecting the hairpin and Alt-clicking wherever you want to paste it.
One of the best features of Dorico is that the caret isn’t just for note input. You can use it for just about anything – adding dynamics, adding octave lines, adding clefs in cross-staff music; the list goes on. Definitely one of my favorite things about Dorico.
If you want to put the caret midway through a long note, you can also double-click on the stave rather than the note - the caret will then appear at the rhythmic position where you double-clicked, rather than at the start of the long note.
I gotta admit, I’ve always found using the caret super awkward for stuff like this.
I find it’s much faster to just create two half notes, add the cres on the 2nd one, and then change the first one into a whole note.
This especially goes for when you have multiple dynamics over the course of a long series of tied notes.
My go-to technique is to find the same rhythmic position on an adjacent staff, add it there, and then move it using Alt-M or Alt-N. I can usually find a spot close by where this works easily.
I"ve been using Dorico a lot recently and I have to say putting hairpins in on notes that are tied or where you want them halfway through a note- is a real pain. There are far to many clicks for this operation in terms of the caret use. I think it needs to be addressed as a workflow improvement. I wonder how many people here encounter this problem on a daily basis that would prefer a more elegant way.