I have had to score a full orchestra backing a singer, The piece comes down to where it is just vocal and piano. The fermata appears on beat 4 in the piano and vocal part, but appears as a whole note rest in all the resting parts. It needs to appear on all the resting parts on beat four as well. I have had two fermatas in one bar and all the resting players see double fermatas, but not assigned to specific beats. Work arounds - yes - but time consuming.
I think you’ll need to fill one instrumental bar with the appropriate rests (using rest mode and force duration), and then you can select that entire bar and Alt+click it into other staves.
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Yep, that’s what I do. But that takes time. I’m suggesting this as a feature request so that work-flow improves.
Love Dorico!
What kind of improvement would you like to see? A fermata on beat 4 should automatically populate empty measures with the appropriate rests?
One issue I can see is that if I enter one part and put the fermata on beat 4, I probably would not want explicit rests in the other parts, because they get in my way if I want to enter notes in those measures. I like the way that Dorico currently knows that the fermata is actually on beat 4, and as I enter notes in one of those empty bars it keeps the fermata in the correct place.
Exactly!
If I go to enter any notes in that bar for anyone else it is no problem.
So I’m confused. You say you’re suggesting this as a feature request. What is your feature request?
I disagree with this requirement. Resting parts only need to know that a pause exists. They don’t care whereabouts in the bar it happens. Unless, perhaps, they are playing in the next bar (in which case forcing the rests would be appropriate).
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Often, a whole rest with a fermata is fine. But sometimes, players do need to know exactly where the hold happens. For what it’s worth, I’m OK with the way Dorico handles this now, with explict rests as asherber describes above.
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Exactly. As I said… (?)
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In this example - in the vocal and piano parts there is a fermata on beat four. All other players are resting. They should see a fermata on beat 4. Over a quarter rest.
@sttrumpet Can you please state specifically what your feature request is? I thought it was that you wanted Dorico to autopopulate empty bars with rests when a fermata gets added in a bar with music – but then you agreed with my statement that this could be problematic.
I find that the more info that’s provided in the part, the fewer problems there are in rehearsal. If the fermata is on beat 2 and the music continues on beat 3, the resting instruments need to know that the next beat they see is 3 and not the downbeat of the next bar.
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Feature request - Dorico automatically sets the exact beat that the fermata occurs in resting players parts. Not a whole rest with a fermata(which is what Dorico currently does) Resting players need to know where the fermata is.
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Either of these would be most clear, no?
This is still unclear:
So maybe an option to create the forced rests automatically.
Jesper
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I reiterate my concern with this approach, which is that it will make it more difficult to enter notes in those measures.
As I noted above, right now, I can enter notes in an instrumental staff and add a fermata on some beat; the other staves display (implicit) whole rests with the fermata. As I enter notes in the other staves, the fermata automatically repositions to the correct beat. If an staff has no notes, I can add the desired rests by hand (just like entering notes).
With the proposed feature, I would be better off not adding the fermata until I have finished adding notes in all staves, since the automatic explicit rests would interfere with note entry.
I think the current behavior is more user-friendly and more consistent.
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I don’t think the second one (dotted half rest) is generally accepted notation.
You are right, but I wanted to show the option anyway.
Jesper
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Why would you believe thatDorico would fill the bar with forced rests that will then stay as forced rests afterwards? That’s not what Dorico is doing anywhere else, so why would they do that with this feature?
I second the feature request in general, and I’m looking forward to the day where Dorico will change its algorithm of rendering rests so a fermata will be shown at the correct position, surrounded by rests of the approproate length.
(And when I enter new notes, Dorico will - of course - re-render the bar according to the new input, as always.)
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As long as you could turn that behavior off.
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How about a choice in Layout Options?
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