I’m trying to transcribe a timpani part. How do I input a roll?
A measured roll, or an unmeasured roll?
As jesele says, use a tremolo - but make sure it’s clear what you actually want.
Trills are also used sometimes for unmeasured rolls.
Perfectly logical (Not). I’ve looked everywhere else, read dozens of articles and listened to at least an hour of videos. Thank you for showing me where they are.
I’ve seen many people bothered by the placement of tremolo. While I wouldn’t call it intuitive, it does make some sense to me. As someone who deals with designing and implementing HMIs, I’m curious where you might have looked first.
Playing techniques, every time.
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I agree that it makes “some” sense.
But only 10% for me - as in “ok, when I really think about it, I can understand it”.
My other 90% are: “Repeat structures are about the big structure of a piece, something that affects everybody in the orchestra” and “Playing techniques are what individual players do with their instrument”.
Playing devil’s advocate for a second, using the current argument, one could also put ties into the repeat structure section: Players will have to repeatedly blow into their instrument or strike their bow to hold really long notes… (An exaggeration, of course, but I’m sure you get what I’m saying: If doing fast repetitions in a tremolo counts as “repeat structure”, so should slow repetitions for very long notes 
)
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I wouldn’t think of it there—my instinct is always to look for it in ornaments. But now I remember it’s in repeats the same way I remember Q for quord. 
Yeah, my thinking is it was a more clear way to consolidate measured and unmeasured tremolos in one place. It does seem like unmeasured tremolos (and rolls) ought to be a playing technique, but then measured tremolos, such as those with single strokes, are really nothing more than a simpler way to denote repetition (i.e., not really a technique). When you pause to think about it, it does make sense – it’s actually almost too logical (haha!).
Better yet, I recommend getting acquainted with the popover for repeats, Shift+R. Then you can type “3” or “///” for unmeasured tremolo, “z” for buzz rolls, etc.
Also for timpani and percussion you can always use the trill notation as some prefer, shift+O and “tr”.
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Thank you everyone. Getting the keyboard shortcuts is also great.