Hi!
In Swedish folk music, we have a special notated quirk where we write dotted eighth + sixteenth but we actually play it closer to a triplet swing feel.
I recently tranferred to Dorico Pro 5 from Siblelius 7 Ultimate and I remember that there was a button in the playback menu there which said dotted eighth + sixteenth = triplet swing (in music notation of course). Is this possible in Dorico?
I don’t think this is possible in playback (honestly, just notate in compound meter haha) but it should be possible in notation.
How can I do it in notation? I’ve tried with the tempo popover, but can’t figure it out.
I’m trying to figure it out too…
Hi @pemareman , and welcome to the Forum!,
you can easily write this, with a dedicated music font (and system-attached text), for example using MusGlyphs.
dorico file example:
dotted to swing in notation.dorico (466.1 KB)
(You need MuseGlyphs font installed to see the File properly.)
screenshot:
2 Likes
Thank you for your help!
1 Like
Oh I didn’t know that existed cool
And for playback you should be able to get a triplet swing feel by going into Playback Options > Timing > Rhythmic Feel. From here you can select a global swing for your entire project, or also define custom swing feels which you can then apply to individual notes (using the tempo popover with the specific notes selected).
1 Like
Or at any rhythmic position using the caret.
1 Like
You could try notating it in 12/8 with quarter-eighth note combinations (♩♪♩♪ etc)
Is it possible to adapt the “Swing” rhythmic feel in Pro 5 for quarter notes, or do baroque/classical musicians have to translate Cut time to a high speed 4/4, or 3/2 to 3 / 4?
Swing playback is only available (and, to my knowledge, only ever used by musicians) at the eighth- and sixteenth-note levels.
Not in Swedish (and maybe the other nordic countries?) folk music, where we sometimes notate dotted eighth + sixteenth but play with a triplet swing feel as I said in the original post. 
No, not currently, but I would like to see that option too. It’s not super common in jazz, but you’ll sometimes hear a player go to swing quarters in sort of a half-time feel against the main pulse, as Sean Jones does here:
3 Likes
Cool example! Yeah, I guess swung quarters would be a good way to transcribe that “floating-half-time feel.”
1 Like
A bit hard to follow the thread here. If you were directing this to me, I meant my reply for @rjthomson110253 about swung quarter note playback in Dorico.
Even in some modern hip-hop and RnB productions, with a technique especially popularized by J. Dilla, you will often find quarter note snares on the 2 & 4 playing a little behind the beat, sometimes similar with the kick. Which, if I were to notate in Dorico would appear to be vanilla quarter notes but in playback would be ideal to give them a somewhat swung feel.
2 Likes
“No vanilla fo’ the Dilla!”
2 Likes
I guess I default (too easily?) to thinking that written notation will always be square/vanilla, and only a written approximation of the nuances of any swung or “loose” feel in any of a million styles. Maybe I should be more generous towards notation…
1 Like
Have you read the book Dilla Time? I thought it was great! If you’re into Dilla you’ll probably dig it.
2 Likes