As the title implies, I am trying to input drum cues for a score I am working on. I have a rhythm in the piano that I would like the drummer to have in the small “drum cue” notes above the slashes in that particular measure. However, whenever I press Shift+U, nothing happens. Whether I am in note entry mode or not, or if I am clicking on notes or rests. I have tried restarting Dorico and restarting my laptop. I reset all key commands to factory default. Still, when I press Shift+U, nothing happens. When trying to locate this key command, where “Create Cue” would be alphabetically does not exist.
This screenshot was done using Dorico Pro. If you are using a lower tier of Dorico, such as Elements or SE, some features might not be present. It is always a good idea to mention whether you are using Pro, Elements or SE. This will help others to find an answer, and hopefully a solution, to the problem presented.
then this is how I did it (within the restrictions of Dorico SE), after inputting the piano’s notes in bar 3.
Input the drum set pattern in bar 2
Create the Slash Region in bar 3
Select the Slash Region and, in Properties > Slash Regions, enable Show other voices
In bar 3, input the “cued Piano rhythm” into the Hi-Hat
Select those “cue notes” (including the rest) and in Properties > Common,
a) enable Suppress playback
b) enable Scale and chose Cue
If the eighth rest looks a little large, select it and choose Custom scale and set a percentage which pleases you (you will possibly need to disable Scale first)
Select the first note in the “cue”, input Piano as staff-attached text and reduce the font size to whatever suits you
The “cue” can not be raised any higher without ledger lines appearing, and Dorico SE does not have the ability to hide ledger lines.
Ahhhh I am working with Dorico Elements 5. It is so unfortunate that Elements doesn’t have that feature, as it would be massively helpful for writing jazz charts. I never even considered that that would be the cause. Sorry for my silliness everybody!
I started Dorico as Elements (by holding down the opt/alt key immediately after launching Dorico) and did some more experimenting. Dorico Elements does have the ability to hide ledger lines of selected notes (in Engrave mode). Because the “cue notes” can be moved up one more position (into the Crash Cymbal voice), it means that the “cue” can be raised a little more above the staff. This gives some visual separation from the staff, and would make it more obvious that those notes are not to be played by the drummer.
