Slur longer than cue note passage: how can I show the slur?

I have two bars of cue notes. There is a slur which lasts longer than these two bars and doesn’t appear. How can I make appear this slur, reaching until the end of the last cue notes bar? (Same is true for slurs reaching into the start of cues notes).

I would expect the question is whether the player would recognize the cue even without the slur.

If the player were expected to play the notes with or instead of the original instrument, then having the slurs present might actually make a difference.

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They would probably recognize cues without articulations, dynamics, playing techniques, etc. as well, yet Dorico has options to hide or show those. :wink: In (amateur) wind band setting, cues are often meant to be played and in that case the slurs are very much relevant indeed. I understand that Dorico can’t show a slur automatically when the cue only shows part of a slurred phrase, but being able to insert a slur manually would be a great improvement.

@Joachim_Linckelmann to answer your question, the last time I had to do this I believe I resorted to inserting a slur (or even a l.v. tie, I can’t recall) elsewhere on some actual notes for that player and then dragging/adjusting that in Engrave mode to the cue. Obviously a very messy approach, perhaps others have better solutions.

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As Zalde said you can recognize cue notes even without any kind of additional information, but this is not the question.

The question is how I can write the slur from the source music in the cue notes.

As far as I understand now Dorico doesn’t allow any kind of individualization of cue notes which is my problem. This doesn’t concern only slurs, but e.g. also note durations ( Cue notes individual prolongation ).

I know that I can add an extra instrument to use only as a source for cue notes, but then the file which already contains 70 players potentially becomes very confusing (and probably even slower as it is already).

Wouldn’t it create another problem if Dorico would allow you to customize the cues directly?

What if you had altered the ending of the slur in the cue to be visible, and in the source you remove it? Or you remove the last notes in the source? Would the altered Cue show the situation before editing the source?

I think current behaviour, where altering the source reflects in the Cues automatically is preferable. And if the content you want in a Cue is not available in some existing player, it’s nice you can create one just for this purpose.

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It certainly could create another problem. But as long as Dorico does not reflect the cues automatically (e.g. missing slurs, no transposition option (Cue notes and transpositions)) I would prefer to be able to edit them.

It doesn’t currently (nor should it, as implemented) allow this. Your best option is to add a second instance of that instrument and enter the music as it should be in the cued part for those measures, then use that as the source for the cue. You can easily omit this instrument from your score, so it won’t show.

Only takes a few clicks, and it doesn’t require moving anything in Engrave, where it can get messy very quickly.

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I ran into a new one today. A simple wind quintet, Oboe cue note with trill for the flute player. But since the trill goes into the bar the flute already starts it won’t be shown at all. But the trill is a crucial part of the cue.

Is it really true that I need in all pieces I write a second set of players just for cue notes?

You don’t need a whole second set of players, you could add one player (e.g. from the Sketch category) that you don’t include in the full score layout eventually, and use that for cues you need to modify. You can change the cue labels manually in the properties panel.

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That’s really the only viable solution right now. The good news is that it’s really easy. Something the Dorico programmers could do as a short-term solution (and would actually help in other areas as well) would be to make it possible to have a live copy of a staff–meaning a child staff that updates with the parent. That way, you could use the child for the cue staff, and any updates to the parent are passed on to the child. (Feature Request)

Thanks Zalde and clancyweeks for the suggestions.