The point of slash notation, it seems to me, is to make the music more readable for rhythm section players who are able to comp from chord names. But I still need the music in the measures for playback purposes. I applied a slash region. The slashes appear, but the notes continue to appear as well. I cannot find a way to hide the notes. Is this not possible?
And if I am not allowed to have any real notes “under” the slashes, then how can I do rhythmic notation (like slashes, except the slashes show the actual rhythms)?
I see that the rhythmic slashes work as I would have expected. Select the material you want “shashed” then
Right-Click → Voices → Rhythmic Slashes → Slashes with Stems.
But sadly, it appears there is no similar option for beat slashes. It appears the only option is to apply a slash region and that will not hide the notes in the measure. I tried the recommendation of changing the color of the notes to white, but this made a real mess, as accidentals and some of the stems and flags remained black.
Same problem with bar repeat regions, of course. I really don’t want to have to maintain two different instruments-- one for display and one for playback, but I guess that may be the only viable option.
Yes, I know that the current behaviour of the slash regions and bar repeat regions isn’t the same as the corresponding staff styles in Finale. I would like them to move in that direction so hopefully what you are asking for will become possible in the future.
Having taken some time to understand how you have approached custom scores, I can see that it will be easier to maintain “playback-only” tracks in Dorico than in Finale. I have done that in Finale, but there really is no concept of different versions of score layouts. In Finale, you can hide staves in the score, but that is a rather tedious process. It is much more straightforward in Dorico, as one can simply have a full score and a custom score, with the custom score being the one the conductor would receive.
Another issue that results from the Finale staff styles approach is that the music obscured by slashes, one-bar repeats or whatever still continue to take up space as far as layout is concerned. IMHO, that is just wrong, leading to hours of fiddling to get any sensible layout.
I still think (and you have indicated your preference as well) that slashes and repeats should have the ability to overlay notes as the ultimate goal. Those notes should be processed for playback, but should be ignored for layout purposes, as they are not visible. In the meantime, I do think it is a manageable solution to maintain two versions of the track (one for playback and one for score and printed parts.)
