Hello. I’ve got a drum set here, imported via xml. It gives the hi-hat and snare on same stem. I want one pointing up and one pointing down. But right-clicking doesn’t provide any option to separate them. In fact, right-clicking on this perc staff gives totally different options than right-clicking on a music staff. Is there a way to get these two notes on different stems?
You can globally change the direction of stems by editing the Percussion Kit
Player > Drum Set (pull-down) > Edit Percussion Kit
There’s a dedicated Percussion sub-menu that you appear to be overlooking. You may also need to edit the Percussion Kit itself, from within Setup mode.
Thanks to Derrek and Pianoleo for their help. Another question pls. Is there a recommended drum-set layout within Dorico, following Elaine Gould or Norman Weinberg. What is best current practice for notating, say, open hi-hats. And should snare-drum be notated stems up or stems down. I’ve looked in Dorico Help, but I’m not finding a recommended layout.
From what I’ve read here and there, it looks like down stem notes are for foot actioned instruments (bass drum, hi-hat on foot) and up-stem for hand actioned instruments. Hi-hat would be exactly where it is by default, above the 5th line, cross-headed, and open hi-hat has a ° above the stem (that comes from "guidelines for drumset notation by Norman Weinberg, thesis from the Indiana University, April 1993)
Merci, Marc. I had seen Weinberg’s recommendations. But, for me, it still looks much neater and easier to read when kick drum and snare are both stems down; and open hi-hats still look neater (to me) as circled cross-notes.
Not sure why you would ask what Gould or Weinberg suggests and then say you don’t agree when someone gives you the answer. But at any rate the key is not what appeals to us but what is clearer to the players. Certainly Dorico gives you the ability to configure the stems in whatever direction you please. The Percussion section of Notation Options gives a couple of options, and then you can customize those within the Kits themselves.