Hello! I have a few questions regarding complex percussion I am trying to compose using Dorico. First, when I am trying to add sticking for a drumset (specifically tenor drums) using the lyrics tool, the program only lets me do the sticking for a single drum, then just quits the dialogue. This makes it very annoying and time-consuming to write the sticking for tenors.
Secondly, I’m trying to add complex splits to the tenor parts by adding another staff above. However, whenever I try to put a note on the added staff, it just places the note in the original staff, and I can’t place anything on the new staff.
Sorry for all the questions, but thank you for your time!
When you’ve typed the lyric (or sticking) for one note, hit Space and the dialog will jump to the next note. Rinse and repeat.
How are you trying to add a note to the stave above? Typically one would use the caret to enter notes, and when you want to switch to a different staff you just use the up and down arrows to jump the caret to the correct staff. Then input the note.
Yes, but for some reason when working with different drums in a drumset pressing space just quits the dialogue box. As for the second staff, I’m not able to place notes on the other staff for some reason, I think it has to do with it being a drumset because it works fine on other instruments.
In Layout Options > Players > Percussion, is the percussion representation set to 5-line staff, Grid or Single-line instruments?
5-line staff, and I would prefer to keep it that way.
Can you explain how you’re adding a staff above, in that case?
Sure, I’m just double-clicking the tenor part until the carrot shows, and right-clicking and pressing in the staff menu “add staff above.”
I’m pretty sure you’ve stumbled across functionality that isn’t supposed to exist. I may be wrong, of course…
Typically in order to get an extra Percusion staff I believe you’d need to assign a second percussion kit to the same player, and then assign instruments to it.
Okay. I hope they do make it a feature though, because it is not very uncommon to have multiple staffs of snare drums or quad drums playing splits in the drumline world. Anyways, thanks for the help!
However, does anyone have any idea for drumset sticking?
In my admittedly limited experience (last night), lyrics on five-line percussion staves work as follows: if you type a lyric and hit Space, the popover will jump to the next note on the same instrument (which is generally the next note on the same staff line or space). You can generally bypass this by typing the sticking, then hitting Escape Tab RightArrow Shift+L. It’s not exactly quick, but it’s probably quicker than reaching for the mouse. Alternatively, use the L and R Playing Techniques. These, just like lyrics, can be copied and pasted by Alt-clicking.
We didn’t intend lyrics to be used for percussion sticking. We plan to add a proper feature for this in future, for what it’s worth.
Oh, that’s great! That’d be a big help. Thank you all for the responses!