Dear Dorico users
I’d like to set up a staff with the optional G clef (gClef8vbParens) (U+E057). The clef is there in the SMUFL glyphs,
but (strangely) not among the common clefs, or the uncommon clefs, or the archaic clefs, or anywhere else where it can be accessed.
I tried to insert it by going to Engrave>Music Symbols>Category:clefs, but found that that dialog box had no option to add any new clefs.
So I’m not sure where to go from here.
Does anyone know, pls, how to insert this clef (a very useful clef for choral composers) as the main clef for a CHORUS line, running through several flows of music?
You can’t create a new clef, but you can modify an existing one. Any of the ottava clefs will do, as they are ‘cosmetic’ and do not affect pitch.
The optional clef symbol is there, in the Clefs range in the Music Symbols Editor.
As part of the extensive discussions about Dorico’s ottava clefs, it has been suggested that Tenors will sing an appropriate octave regardless. But you just can’t trust’em!
Yet more pointless clutter in the score IMO. Why stop at parentheses? Why not change the 8 to 8ba as well, just in case somebody thinks the 8 means an octave higher?
Dear Leo, Thanks. I’ll try that.
It would be nice if it were there among the clefs, Dorico team. Seems to me more useful than some of the default options you offer.
PS Not pointless clutter, IMHO. Part of the venerable tradition of choral writing for when you get a mixed choir singing unison.
Well, personally a detest the idea of “notation in parentheses”. It always gives me the idea that the composer or editor didn’t actually know what they wanted, so they put something in parentheses in the hope the performer will figure it out.
Well, I don’t so much detest this particular notation as feel it might be looked upon as redundant. I had to create this particular clef in Finale long before SMUFL or even Unicode, simply because a composer wanted it. It wasn’t a matter of the composer or editor not actually knowing what they wanted, just covering all the notational bases, with mixed choir singing from the same staff. I’ve notated music for a composer who put everything, but especially dynamics and accents, between parentheses, and this drove me nuts. And speaking of real redundancy, this same composer would accompany articulations with their verbal descriptions, e.g. a whole section of notes with staccatos but also with the word ‘staccato’ above them (often between parentheses, as well).
If I ever feel in a really evil mood, I’ll create a text font where the strokes of the letters are made from dotted lines, for people who want really really indecisive markings in the score.
As a variant option, each dot could be enclosed in its own parentheses, of course.
Usually, dotted lines or parentheses serve to indicate editorial additions, or some other type of marking that needs to be distinguished from the ‘plain’ variety, rather than to denote ‘indecision’.
I don’t think I ever complained about dotted slurs (or dotted hairpins).
Instead of parentheses around text, consider a lighter or smaller typeface. Similarly for accidentals.
Parentheses are mostly just bad design, typographically, because they are visually emphasizing something which shouldn’t be emphasized, by putting “look at me!!! look at me!!!” markings around the object.
