I have been enjoying Dorico’s piano pedaling capabilities, which have handled almost everything I’ve thrown at it. But I have had two serious issues, one unresolved.
I use pedal brackets (with the initial vertical line) to show editorial pedaling and the traditional Ped * to show the composer’s original pedaling. Since there is no option in the Engraving Options to use both versions, I converted the Sostenuto pedal line into a Ped * pedal line by means of the Musical Symbol editor. This has allowed me to use both systems simultaneously which occurs when I show the composer’s pedaling and my modification or supplementation directly under it. Three cheers for the Music Symbol editor, which has solved a number of such issues for me.
However, there is the unresolved problem. The * release remains stubbornly horizontal in relation the Ped. That is, I cannot move it higher and closer to the staff than the Ped, a situation that occurs when the pedal is depressed on a very low note and released on a much higher one. A case is shown in my example, where the pedal release would be better positioned much closer to the bass staff:
If there is a way to do this in Dorico? If not, I may be forced to enter such a pedal release with a workaround.
I’m afraid for the time being those kinds of pedal lines are forced horizontal. The easiest way to handle this with the current capabilities of the program may well be to design two new playing techniques using the Engrave > Playing Techniques dialog, one for the Ped. and one for the release, with default placement below, and add them when you need them to be vertically disjoint.
The Playing Techniques designer was new to me and solved the problem quite well enough for my present purposes. Thank you very much for pointing me in that direction, Daniel.
I can imagine using it to personalize the playing techniques panel. Is it possible now or planned for the user to be able modify the other panels similarly? For example, I would like to add an a tempo in italics to the Reset Tempo category to match the Gradual Tempo Changes in italics.
Dear John,
You can use the properties panel to change the text of a tempo. So if you add a rall. marking, it will be in italics (if your gradual tempo changes have been modified to be displayed in italics). Change the rall. text in the properties field to a tempo and it will display just fine. However, it will not play back as an a tempo marking…
I wish this were implemented too for quite some time now. But this drawback can be worked around too: in the properties panel, make sure the tempo target is 100% (no actual tempo change) and input a new hidden metronome marking right after your a tempo and it’s just fine. Note that these marking can be alt-clicked if you need several a tempo markings in your score.
I have the opposite request — I’d like to be able to select a few pedal markings on one system, and have them all lined up vertically. Is that possible currently? It would be great if there were an option for pedal markings to be aligned by default.
I agree that it would indeed be good to have an option for pedal lines to be lined up by default. This isn’t currently possible, but it is on our backlog for the future.
Hi, this was 2 years ago, but I would like to ask is it possible now on 3.5 to align vertical position of pedal markings on the same system? Would help a lot. I’ve been dragging and dropping in Engrave mode for all of the pedal lines to be on the same level with each other.
