Is this possible? This is for a percussive extended technique notation on a harp grand staff:
One way of achieving that is to have two harp players and a percussion player, and hide one staff of each of the harp players, as in the attached project. You will need to change the staff labels.
Harp&Perc.dorico (613.9 KB)
Thanks. That’s not ideal because the extended technique is only for a few parts in the whole piece. I think the ideal solution would be the ability to add a staff above (like we can now) but be able to choose what type of staff it is. For now, I’ll just notate the percussion on the treble staff.
An easier way: You can put the notes in a 1-line percussion instrument, with x-noteheads, and add a cue in the bottom staff of the harp. This will show between the staves, just without a staff line or clef (which don’t add any information anyway).
By default the Harp-part layout shows the cue and not the percussion instrument. If you need to use Score layout for some reason, you can make it do the same.
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As much as I love Dorico, this is where Finale shines. You can design any kind of staff you want and bracket it, space it, or otherwise organize it however you like. I hope they make Dorico more flexible in this regard. Then again, maybe Dorico has already become that flexible and missed it. Does anyone know how to design and space custom clefs? I tried making a drum kit with two treble staves and a percussion staff in the middle, but Dorico gave it the Big Naw, Dude. Any other ideas?
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You cannot easily do this in Dorico at the moment, no. You could have a player holding three instruments: a treble pitched instrument, a percussion kit, and a bass pitched instrument, and then change the bracketing using a bracket/barline change in Engrave mode.
This could also be useful for annotating the accordion’s ‘air button’, because some composers write it on a line between the two staves.