It would be very useful to have a text property with the 8va marking.
In this case, I’d like to add (Optional).
I realize I can do this with a separate text item, but it makes better sense for this to be a property of the 8va mark so that it will copy to other players.
as far as I know, you could go to: Library /music symbols /edit music symbols to change that.
Or you could create a custom line?
Then it will play back in the wrong octave.
If you want to add ‘optional’ then clearly playback is not important for you.
Yes, it is important. I want the part in the upper octave, but I write “Optional” so that a player who is not really capable won’t feel like he/she has to do that. If they aren’t solid in that range, I’d rather they play it in the lower octave, but I don’t want to write “Take it down if you don’t have any chops”. That wouldn’t be nice.
There could be other cases where I’d use the text, such as “(If no piccolo player)”.
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And that leads to another suggestion in this same area: a property that controls whether the music is played back in the adjusted octave, or in the octave as if the marking were not there. It should default to playing the adjusted pitch as happens now, of course. But there are times when I write a trumpet part for “mere mortals”, but indicate the lead trumpet can go up an octave if he wants to be a hero (not that any of them ever waits for an invitation.) In those cases, it might be better for playback to render the “mere mortal” notes.
That does work. I don’t see any way that I can have the ability for some of the 8va marks to be normal and some to say “optional”. That may be OK for my current project. I think in this case, any time I use 8va it can say “8va (opt)”