Hello! I apologize if I may have missed it in the manual or here on the forum, but is there a way to indicate the use of a thumb valve for tenor or bass trombones with F attachment? Thanks very much!
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See this topic for a discussion about trombone positions and valve indications (further down).
Thanks! Yes, I’d read through that thread - the most relevant post was yours at the end: “O.k., let’s make it even more complicated: One can find indications for the valve (F attachment) as well: V (before or after the slide position) And for bass trombones you can find VV, when you have to use both valves. In Germany you can find Q or QQ instead of V or VV. I know, that Dorico is walking down the semantically correct road, but I think it would be much easier, to allow a prefix and/or suffix to the slide positions (smiilar to e.g, dynamics).”
I tried various permutations of this using both V and T, and with none of them could I get either letter to stick. (Actually T just seems to pull up a fingering indication for stringed instruments.) Does this mean there is currently no way to indicate the trigger/thumb/change valve for a trombone as there is for horn, or am I doing it wrong? The specific use case is indicating an unusual slide position to make a certain gliss work, though I imagine the player would figure it out soon enough on their own - or I bet I could just create the position using generic text input. (By the way, I’m also a horn player and the horn fingering/branch options in Dorico are very impressive.) Anyway, thanks again!
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For trombones with F-attachment, I assumed that Dorico would allow the horn branch property as for F Horns to be accessible, but it isn’t… The players will probably get it nonetheless, but I’m not sure I understand why is it disabled? Thanks in advance if someone knows more about this “issue” and can explain.
I see the User Guide states
Note
You can only add branch indicators to notes belonging to horns in F.
So the property was intended only for the strict meaning of ‘Horn’ (as opposed to the American usage of ‘horns’ to mean any wind instruments).
I recently had a commission in which I wanted to specify trombone slide positions which included an F trigger. I was also unable to make Dorico’s standard fingering option work the way I wanted for this task, so I ended up creating a playing technique for each desired slide position and using the same font as the fingering font (which is selectable when you create the playing technique) - I was even able to include continuation lines for the duration of the desired slide position. For me this approach worked very well!
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This is an excelent workaround, but it is still… a workaround! I’m just wondering: Why doesn’t Dorico natively allow showing valves/branches for trombones if the underlying system is already in place for F Horns? I think it should allow this… Perhaps there is a reason, but I don’t yet understand why.
As a trombone player, I’d like to say that slide positions and valve indications are not needed for experienced players. They already know this stuff.
If confronted with a part marked up in such a manner, I would ask the Harpist whether I could borrow her bottle of White Out. The one she carries with her in order to eradicate unneeded or misleading pedaling indications.
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You are right, but Dorico is not just a program for experienced players. People also want to notate method books, studies and pieces for young players with Dorico.
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I’d suggest that Dorico have “Bb” and “F” branches for the Tenor Trombone and add both “G♭” and “D” branches for the Bass Trombone (and maybe the generic “Trombone” instrument), then use Engraving Options to decide how they appear globally.