Hi,
I can’t seem to find a way to notate those 2 voices (of different rhythmic values) with the 2nd voice tool or any other work around.
This is a percussion kit with 5 tom-toms, one on each line, and as you see it is not possible to assign an instrument to appear only in one voice, as it might appear in both (middle tom-tom).
Is there any solution to it?
Thank you
Hi @pandahouparon, and welcome to the Forum
I was able to obtain this, starting writing with the Single lines instruments set in Layout options/Players/Percussion,
I wrote the second note on the first bottom line, and then switching to 5-lines staff later, and moving the second note to the third line with alt+up arrow)
Then some beaming and notation options/percussion tweaking…
(the rests position are not all tweakable though…I don’t know why…, probably because the rest are somewhat orphans, having moved the second note up two lines?..)
percussion with different voices.dorico (486.3 KB)
Yes, what Christian said, especially when writing with drum set I have to switch to single-line instruments in the layout options. It’s the only way I am able to have detailed control over the complex syncopation I write and work quickly. In addition it makes it possible to create different dynamics (say you want your hi-hats at p and snare at mf). And then switch back to 5-line when preparing the final score.
Ideally in the future I wish this could be toggled either from a keyboard shortcut, right-click menu option on the staff itself (staff > ‘show single-line’), under view options (‘show single line’), or easily accessible from the jump bar (as of now when you type it in the jump bar it does not show up). I sometimes forget where to find it in the ocean of menu options and to me it’s something I think is pretty helpful to toggle during the writing process.
Hi @Christian_R , thank you for the welcoming.
I’m quite new in Dorico, but I’m more and more amazed by it.
Your solution works just fine, just tried it!
Thank you so much!
Indeed the bottom rests are not tweakable.
Hopefully future Dorico editions will make polyrhythms easier to notate in percussion kits - where it’s actually mostly needed.
Oh, it gets better, different dynamics!
Thank you both so much!
@wing
Yes, it’s really helpful. As a drummer myself growing up I never played all “instruments” of the kit at the same dynamics. Certain ones need a different touch - cymbals especially. Really helpful to set a crash at mp if my other drums are going at f, in a normal kit the crash would otherwise be crazy loud for my tastes.
Important to point out though when you return to a 5-line staff (or grid staff) these different dynamics will “disappear” from the score, so what I’m referring to is for playback only. However when you go back to single-line they will still be there in case you need to change them, but just to keep in mind.
Another advantage to the separate kit is easier selections - often I like to maybe only swing my hats or ride and not the others, so in single-line I can more quickly select only those and go shift+t - ‘swing’ etc.
Welcome to Dorico!
Hmmm I encountered a slightly different situation now.
It seems that in the previous example it worked because the notes still within an 8th duration. But when a whole quarter is a 7plet on top of a 3plet it seems that it’s not possible to move the notes along the different single lines, or to a different line in the 5line staff.
The green circles show where the notes of the red voice should be.
(By the way, Dorico arbitrarily split the two voices resulting to this up-down inconsistency but I really don’t mind)
Any ideas?
You can’t move a note to a different instrument in the kit if the destination instrument is notated in another voice and has an incompatible tuplet structure, as the note wouldn’t be correctly notatable at that position. Without seeing your percussion kit setup I can’t say for sure, but I expect the instrument that is set on the middle line of the staff is set to use the up-stem voice.
Exactly, the purple voice is taking over the middle line because I wrote it first.
Is there any hack I can do?
I don’t care about playback, just notation.
Thank you!
If you can attach the project, we might be able to figure it out.
Thanks a lot for your time!
I’m gonna have the same problem in more places in the piece, for sure.
I guess I could eventually make a regular 5-line staff and just put the notes normally in two voices, but the percussion kit makes it easier to remember on which line is every instrument.
3 Percussionist.dorico (4.0 MB)
The best suggestion I can come up with is to add a second instrument on the middle line of the staff in the percussion kit, and assign it to the down-stem voice. In that way, you’ll have two instruments on that line of the staff, one in the up-stem voice and the other in the down-stem voice. As you use Alt+up/down arrow to move notes between instruments, you’ll be able to switch between the up- and down-stem instruments in turn.
Replying to remind myself to look at this more later…
So far, I found the most efficient way for me to control dynamics of different instruments on the kit is to use the “play” view and adjust the velocities… looking forward to learning another trick!
Oh, that sounds smart, I’ll try it and update you with the results!
Hi dspreadbury
Unfortunately the extra instrument on the same line doesn’t work. It make a duration glitch with nested hypertuples (looks Ferneyhoughish though!)
The only way I can think of is to replace the percussion kit with a pitched instrument in order to use its 2 voice ability. But this will mess up the playback.
Is there maybe a way to displace the noteheads vertically (and possibly adjust the stem afterwards)? It won’t playback the correct instrument, but wrong unpitched sound is still better than pitched.
Maybe the Dorico team should include multiple voices in percussion kit in the future, it’s quite usual to have complex polyrhythms for percussion players.
Thanks!
You can assign each instrument to its own voice in Edit Percussion Kit so that it can have its own independent tuplets.
Try displaying the kit as single-line instruments (via the option on the Players page of Layout Options), then input all the polyrhythms you’re after in there, complete on each instrument. Now when you tell Dorico to display them on a five-line staff, you might still end up with some places where the tuplets between two instruments that are assigned to the same voice in the kit presentation type are incompatible. But if you go to the Edit Percussion Kit dialog and ensure that the instruments with incompatible tuplets are notated in separate voices, you will get the results you’re looking for.
It worked! That’s great!
The only little weird thing is this whole rest on top of the staff which doesn’t go or become transparent. It didn’t disappear even when I quit Dorico and opened it back.
Thank you so much for your precious help!
Will Edit > Remove Rests take care of that whole rest? (Selecting the whole rest first)
Oh, I was so consumed by the polyrhythm that I forgot to try that.
Yes, it does the trick.
With a twist, though: when removing that rest (which btw I noticed was present several consequent bars) the rests inside the tuplets were displaced. But of course with some adjustments they’re back were they should be.
What is really great on Daniel’s solution, is that ALL rests are now tweakable!
(see Christian’s message).
Thank you Judd!
