I want to add a Tacet text for x number of bars DURING a flow. I see in the engraving options theres a setting called Minimum number of bars in flow to show “Tacet“. But changing it does nothing.
Anyone know anything?
I think it’s only if the bars are at the end of the flow.
Jesper
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Indeed, if a part has no more notes until the end of a flow, Dorico can show tacet al fine. But if the remaining stretch of music is long enough that this tacet is warranted, you would usually expect some rehearsal marks or other structural signage in there. And those break the tacet again. So to be honest I’ve personally never come across any use for this function at all.
And yes, on occasion one does encounter mid-movement tacets in published repertoire, but those are generally ill-advised, as the player then has no idea how long they have to wait, or what happens in the rest of the music in the meantime. Let’s say there’s a reason why Dorico doesn’t let you do this without some very invasive workarounds.
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This setting applies to an entirely different and equally rare set of circumstances, which IMO the settings could in fact explain more clearly.
If:
- a player has no notes or other content in a particular flow but it is attached to said flow in Setup mode,
AND - there are no systemic items (rehearsal marks, key changes, tempo text etc) beyond the start of the flow (even a pick-up bar counts!)
AND - the flow is longer than this Engraving Options threshold,
THEN you will see something like this in the part layout:
Again I have personally never found a use for this, as it would make more sense in this case to disconnect the player from the flow, resulting in a ‘real’ Tacet.
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This is actually a good example why those [Tacet] marks do make sense:
It saves a lot of space - and it avoids to feed the player with unnecessary information.
Of course the first tacet could be better replaced with a simple 75 bar rest - as the first part stays in 3/4.
The passage up to bar 210 is more complex (there are 21 time signature changes in between the first 3/8 time signature and tempo change in bar 76 and 210), still the following cue is sufficient to keep the player on track. The first three systems of this part are only cues for orientation. No wind player will be going to actually count all bars from the beginning, as the given cues give a much safer orientation to them.
So, yes, in some situations it can make sense to consolidate parts of a flow with rests into one big chunk of [Tacet].
Personally, I hate those kinds of parts. When I started playing in symphony orchestras as a young percussion player, you could get 4-5 parts like that (triangle, snare drum, bass drum, etc.) to be played by one player, each with different tacets. Also not so easy to hear a cue depending on where you sit in the orchestra. Might also be that you have to jump in directly at a concert without rehearsals sometimes.
Jesper
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Jesper, I understand and can agree on your objection.
Just at the above example piece (Bartoks very popular Concerto for Orchestra), the 3rd bassoon player gets all the info he needs.
75 bars rest
Tempo change at bar 76 - with a lot of time signature changes, which he/she will definitely not have to count, as there is (at bar 216) a big ritardando happening (which is the area notated as cues). So he/she has enough time to get prepared for the first entrance, and it is very clear, where to begin. The “roadmap” is cristal clear for the player. Any additional information would be unnecessary and basically clutter the part.
At those times, when these parts were prepared manually, the copyists brought in a lot of musical experience, which is often missing nowadays.
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Note that the rehearsal marks in the Bartók example are the actual bar numbers. With RMs using letters or numbers it would be quite unclear how long the tacet takes if the Allegro would have, say, letter H or so. With bar numbers, you don’t miss the earlier rehearsal marks, because their numbering is implicitly there anyway. I like that.
(Edit:) That said, it’s a good thing, in principle, that Dorico doesn’t make this too easy, because cases like this are very rare, and it would result in the creation of a lot of terrible parts.
Very well. You go explain to OP how to do this in Dorico then.