Is there a shortcut for Open Hi Hat?

Hi,

I don’t see this listed in Key Commands, but is there a way to set up a shortcut for the open hat symbol in Dorico 3.5?

If so, how? Thanks in advance!

Devin Thomas
SouthWest Sound

Hi Devin!
Have you tried to apply the open playing technique? That would be
• Select the note
• Shift P, write o, enter (once or twice)
Not sure it works, but it would be very Doricoish

You should also be able to input the open hi-hat directly during note input, e.g. if you’re using a MIDI keyboard, playing the open hi-hat sound (if you’re using the ‘Use percussion map’ mode in Preferences) will automatically add the ‘o’ marking for you. Alternatively, typing Alt+up/down while using alphabetic input will cycle through the different playing techniques mapped for each instrument in the kit, so you can wait until you see ‘Hi-hat: Open’ above the caret, then hit Y to input a note at that position.

Thanks! Good to know. I’m still exploring percussion options in Dorico. Open hat is not an issue for songs that I input in Dorico, but if I have an existing drum track, say from an XML or midi file that doesn’t contain any open hats and I want to add some in Dorico, I guess I would have to just do it manually on a note by note basis. (or copy and paste) - not a big deal. BTW, I see a lot of options for drum kits and assigning voices to individual drums and percussion instruments, but is there a conventional method that most composers use? Right now, I am assigning Kick to voice 1, Snare to voice 2, and Hat to voice 3, but then I get a lot of extraneous rests that I don’t really want to see in the score. Any advice?

There are a lot of competing conventions for drum set notation, and I would advise you check with your players as to what they might prefer to see. However, I’d suggest trying to limit the number of voices you use to two, so combining either the snare with the kick drum and pedal hi-hat, or combining the snare with the hi-hats and cymbals.

Alternatively, typing Alt+up/down while using alphabetic input will cycle through the different playing techniques mapped for each instrument in the kit, so you can wait until you see ‘Hi-hat: Open’ above the caret, then hit Y to input a note at that position.

Hi Daniel, just tried this and not sure it’s working as intended. I would assume I need to have open hi-hat mapped in the percussion kit, but I don’t think I can add a ° symbol to a notehead via the “Edit Percussion Playing Techniques…” menu.

You certainly do not need that. The open playing technique will trigger the “open” play back technique, which is the one required in the percussion map.

I’m aware I can get correct playback by adding the playing technique to the instrument in the percussion kit editor, but I still need to manually add the ° symbol if I want my drummer to know what to do, which would automatically create an open playback sound anyway.

I’m afraid I wasn’t clear : you don’t need to add the open version in the Edit Percussion instrument techniques, you need to add the ° playing technique on the score!

Okay we’re back on the same page!
My ideal behaviour is something along this lines of this (and of course in the time it took me to edit this video I could have input dozens of °s and +s by now):

2 Likes

how did you achieve this? or is it just and edited video?

sorry I didn’t really understand the solution, trying to input the hihat like this easily rather than manually doing shift p