Here is the issue: I have a percussion kit setup with several instruments, 5 line staff display. The composer wants the player to play a ‘double stop’ (2 notes at once, not a flam), on a particular surface. Under the percussion kit, I am having trouble adding in this unison to represent the double stop.
I tried using an alternate method of notating this, by trying to write one voice stems up, and the other with overlapping note heads, in a down stem voice. That method is also proving to be troublesome, as I cannot seem to switch voices in a percussion kit.
Is there a way to do this? Or is this unattainable at the moment?
If you’re not wedded to the automated legend, could you add a second whatever that resides on the same staff line as Whatever 1, but uses a downstem voice rather than an upstem voice?
Yes, Leo’s suggestion will work: add another instrument to the kit on the same staff position using a voice with stems in the opposite direction and you can happily get unisons.
This was not completely satisfactory for me because if the two instruments were in opposite voices Dorico inserted rests for the non-playing instrument and (presumably because it’s a percussion kit) they couldn’t be deleted. Leo’s solution in “how to write unisons on a percussion grid” How to write a unison on a percussion grid - Dorico - Steinberg Forums inspired me to try again. I think the key to avoiding the rests is using an extra up/down stem voice rather than simply changing. Certainly the steps below work for me:
In the Edit Percussion Kit dialogue create instrument 1 wherever you want it to be on the 5-line staff. Set its stem direction to what you want it to be when there are no unisons.
Create instrument 2 on a spare position on the staff with its stem direction the same as instrument 1.
Input the rhythm on instrument 1 and the unisons on instrument 2.
Assuming you chose up-stem, select all the instrument 2 notes and in Edit|Percussion|Change Voice (or the right-click menu ) set them to “Extra Down-stem Voice” If you chose down-stem, set them to “Extra Up-stem Voice”. I couldn’t find a way to select the notes other than ctrl-clicking each one individually.
Finally, back in the Edit Percussion Kit dialogue, move instrument 2 to the same position as instrument 1. (Doing this last makes step 4 easier.)
I thought I had this brilliant idea of creating a double note head in the note heads panel, and just selecting the new “double note head”, however this has proved to be far more complicated than my mind can handle.
I understand the idea of adding the second voice, but the issue there is the severe possibility of having multiple of the same instrument and the chance from measure to measure of music being placed on different instruments and the chaos that could ensue if for any reason I needed to split the kit into the 1 line staff. The issue is dealing with the VDL template John Barron put together a while ago. I have made some minor changes over the years. But if I ever needed to move the Snare drum to its own 1 line staff, there is a lot of room for confusion.
Robby
Did you ever discover a simpler method or workaround? I’ve just run into exactly the same problem: snare drum unisons with up-and downstems. I can get there eventually but it’s extremely long-winded.
However, I did change the input method for percussion from staff position to percussion mapping. This allows me to add double stops with a second unison note head added to the notes.
The problem is, this only works with percussion mappings that have R and L hands mapped to different notes.