Percussion staff issue

When rests in measures are one quarter or smaller in value (1/4, 3/16. etc.) I prefer to enter the rest symbol instead of a default whole measure rest.

However, I cannot seem to do this on a percussion staff. I suppose a kludge would be to make the measure blank (itself a bit of a kludge) and then put in the rest as a text object, but I wonder if there is a more efficient way to accomplish this.

Have you tried temporarily changing the percussion kit display to individual instrument lines and entering the rest(s) you want on each instrument’s staff?

EDIT: Guess not. I tried it, and it didn’t work.

It’s a pain, but here’s a workaround that’s probably better than adding text (and you’d probably struggle to hide the measure rests on percussion staves anyway).

I’ve started off with a basic drum kit, but I’ve moved an instrument to the middle line that I’m going to use exclusively for rests.

Enter notes to fill each bar. Then mute the ones that will become fake rests, from the properties panel:

Switch to Engrave mode, and go Engrave > Notehead Sets…

Then do this:

You’ll need to repeat the process of adding new noteheads to the set and setting their duration appropriately from within that dialog (and fiddling with the X offsets), until you have something that looks roughly like this:

Hit OK to close the Notehead Sets Editor. If you want, you can hit the Star icon in the bottom left corner to Save As Default - this way, the Fake Rests Notehead Set will be available in new Dorico projects you create.

Switch back to Write mode. Then do this:




Finally, go Edit > Propagate Properties in order that these will look the same in all layouts.

The only downside I can think of to this method is that percussion staves can’t be hidden in the score.

That doesn’t work.

Yes: I found that out.

Thank you. That worked perfectly.