I’m currently working on a few scores for a live TV show which require the use of a click track. For the most part Dorico’s built-in metronome serves me well, but I’ve come across two cases where I don’t believe it can currently do what I want.
A single 3/2 bar in a 4/4 context where the quarter-note pulse should just continue, ideally with 2+2+2 accentuation as well. 6/4 does give me six beats but in a 3+3 pattern, and it is also incorrect notation.
A certain section in a fast 3/4 where the conductor has requested the click to give one bar ‘in 3’, then continue ‘in 1’. And a similar case in 12/8 later on.
I know about the checkboxes in Playback Options but those are project-wide, I can’t use those to fix a local problem. The only quick & dirty solution I’ve been able to think of is to get out a pair of woodblocks and write out the exact click track that I want. But that leads me to another question: is there a way to play back a written part with the different sounds of Dorico’s built-in metronome?
I did find DoricoBeep re-routing, but with the woodblocks it didn’t give me a distinction between the high and low note. Experimenting in a treble staff however, B5 gives the high note, and any other key the low note. With one exception: when I play G5 on my MIDI keyboard I hear a medium-high note, but that doesn’t play back with a written G5. Oh well, two notes will definitely do for now.
(And because this is TV there’s no time for elegant long-term solutions. The rehearsal is tomorrow and the show the day after. It’s quick & dirty all the way down.)
If I had to do this, I would label the 3/2 measure(s) 3/2 rather than 6/4 for the click since that is actually the division desired. Then I would only have to add a separate woodblock track to accentuate the one-per-measure section(s). That is the real dilemma; I looked for a way around that one-to-the-bar click problem without success.
(Of course, the way I tend to conceive music that would go fast enough to want one-to-the-bar, I would probably be using eighth notes where you are using quarters; but I don’t think changing to that approach now would do anything but waste time you don’t have under a deadline.)
