Playing techniques – duplications for abbreviations and modifications

Dorico
#1

Hi all!

I’m encountering a minor frustration with playing techniques option, and I am unsure if there’s a better way to do it!

I often end up with a huge number of different versions of the same technique. Take ‘sul pont.’ I have:
– Molto sul pont.

  • m.s.p.
    – Poco sul pont.
  • p.s.p.
    – sul pont.
  • s.p
  • sul pont. molto vib.
  • The four inbuilt glyph versions

Is there an easier way to:

  1. Add modifiers (like ‘poco’) to a playing technique;
  2. Create standard abbreviations; and
  3. Combine playing techniques (like sul pont. and molto vib.)?

I feel like I’m missing something with 1 and 3, as there are easy ways to do the same thing for dynamics!

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

#2

with the 3rd. point you could just add a custom suffix (continuation property in the properties panel), but it wouldn’t add a “real” second playing technique.

But I second the request of more freedom for text-playing techniques, as I have a similar problem.

#3

Having wasted enough of my life debating with myself whether some composer or editor thought “sf” and “sfz” meant the same thing or two different things, human performers might value a bit more consistency! (I didn’t know that “m.s.p” and “p.s.p” were standard abbreviations for anything, for example).

Of course if you have to reproduce exactly what somebody else wrote, that doesn’t apply.

#4

Rob, it is also that things such as “molto”, “senza” and “poco” are crucial prefixes for contemporary playing techniques. Creating a new one just for every variation is time consuming and on the loss of creativity and outcome.

I totally support your point of inconsistency.

#5

But if you also care about playback to the extent that many people do, you probably want to use different playback patches for molto s.p, s.p, and poco s.p. anyway, so you still need three separate playing techniques and three playback techniques.

#6

Yes, that is true. I personally don’t and for me, just having sul Pont. Would be enough.

I also don’t know too many Liberiers supporting this variety of sul ponticello