Notes in parentheses

This is getting further and further into the realm of workarounds, but I guess you could create another notehead type based on the normal one that is offset by the same amount as the one with parentheses, and then use that for the lower noteheads in the chord.

For me, this will not likely be an issue. About the only time I use parentheses are 2 cases:

  1. “Ghost” notes that are implied more than they are played. These notes always are alone on their stem for me, and that works.

  2. Alternate notes for the player who doesn’t have enough range to get to the primary note. These will almost always be below a regular note on a down stem and above a regular note on an up stem, and I think those cases both happen to work.

My main issue is that it doesn’t make any sense to have to recreate the notehead set with each new project/ Is there no way for the notehead sets to be available to all projects?

In short, no. At least not for mere mortals. There may be a coding workaround, but it would likely be possible only with the “keys.”

You’d need to create the notehead set, then save the project, make it read-only, and use it for future projects. Until library export comes around.

Thanks Daniel, I will try it. Hope there will be a more convinient way of doing that in a future version !

I got as far as FlorentG and created some noteheads with brackets, but I find that the leger lines are a problem because they are so much longer than the default. Is there any way to make the them the normal size, and have the brackets outside of these, as in this example?
notehead with brackets from Sibelius.png

I recall there has been an addition to Dorico about ledger lines, maybe in the last 1.x version or in version 2
 You should be able to make them shorter (in the properties panel, I think).
[Edit] : Engrave mode, select the note on the ledger line and in the properties panel you can modify the length as shown in the picture


Capture d’écran 2018-12-04 Ă  00.52.54.png

No, because this is all just a workaround, and a pretty poor one. We will add proper support for parentheses around notes and chords on pitched staves in due course, but in the meantime for notes on ledger lines you’re going to be better off adding parentheses using text items with the ‘Avoid collisions’ property switched off.

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Thanks Marc - I hadn’t noticed the addition of the ledger line shortening option. This works well.

The reason that the text option is not a good one is because I produce many parts with different transpositions, and while it is not hard to move the text brackets, it’s a case of remembering where they are.

I don’t think it is such a bad solution to a limited set of cases – if only the notes would line up consistently. Surely that is a bug that can be fixed.

I would think the stem X-position should be the same regardless where the notehead sits in the chord. It makes no sense that the parenthesized notes would line up properly when below another parenthesized note, but offset when below a normal note.

We don’t plan to try to “fix” this behaviour (it’s not a bug: Dorico aligns noteheads with the stem according to the widest notehead on the stem) but we do, as I’ve said, plan to add a proper feature to add parentheses around any notehead, correctly taking into account accidentals, rhythm dots, chords, and so on, in due course. That’s where will put our efforts, not on promoting poor workarounds.

I’m not sure I understand this. It looks like a bug to me. You align the notehead correctly in some cases and get it wrong in other cases. Are you saying it is not legitimate for an individual chord to include noteheads of two different widths? I would have thought that would be a fairly natural consequence of allowing multiple notehead sets.

Dorico uses the maximum position of all of the noteheads on the stem to determine the actual stem attachment point, which will then be the same for all noteheads, though there are some other subtleties for certain noteheads like the circled ones. This works fine in practice for all regular noteheads. As I’ve said, we don’t consider adding parentheses to notehead types via the notehead editor an appropriate way to achieve this end result, and we will add a proper feature for it in due course.

I also use parenthesized notes when the same note is written for both hands in a piano part. (Gould, p. 308) Using 7-point parentheses as text items has worked out okay in the absence of a dedicated option.

I know it’s in Gould, but that doesn’t mean you should use parenthesized notes for keyboards, unless it really matters which hand plays which notes.

Actually it slightly irritates me when a composer or editor seems to think I don’t actually know how to play the instrument, and warns me not to try to use both hands on the same key at the same time.

Gould p 308 is a perfect example of how to teach grandmothers to suck eggs IMO.

Let me add a special case: from the last fugue of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues op. 87, in bar 199, a note is parenthesised because it should not be played by either hand, it’s only there because it’s implied by the polyphony. The funny thing is, you’ll hear it anyway, even if it’s not played at all.
ShosFugueXXIV.png

I would say the note should be played, if the player can do it :slight_smile:

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Rob, you’re my favorite poster
 :laughing:

Rachmaninov could apparently reach a 12th. I think the average pianist would find Peter’s example entirely impossible to play (without rolling, which isn’t ideal here!).

Ellington was the master of understanding the “realized notes”. With the A in the bass, and a major third in the chord, the fifth (e) is heard whether it is played or not. The 5th is a very strong overtone of the root. Some brass players do “stupid pitch tricks” , getting triads to sound by playing the root, humming another pitch, causing a third pitch to be heard. A common case is to play the root, and hum the 10th. If that is done in tune, the 5th can pop out.

Adding my vote for parentheses for one or more notes - in this case I have two note pickups in a choral piece just before the repeat sign.

And I suppose the proper way to handle parentheses in the lyrics is to add ( prior to the first word/syllable and ) after the last word/syllable - correct?

Gould seems to suggest (though doesn’t specify) that those lyrics should be omitted altogether, and only shown at the end, at the repeat where they actually occur (Behind Bars, p 469). Come to think of it, that’s how I’ve been doing it as well.

Edit: actually, this isn’t really what that section is addressing. It doesn’t indicate anything about the scenario you’re referencing. I think I have generally seen those lyrics omitted.