I’m currently working on editing a piece that the composer has written for 2 pianos, 8 hands. It took me a little while to get the correct layouts and master pages, but this capability is pretty incredible! Once I got my master pages correctly set up, I was surprised at how easy it is to not only have a full score, but also Piano 1 and Piano 2 parts both correctly configured with Primo on the right and Secondo on the left. Obviously I still have some layout, cues, and casting off work to make sure the pages of Primo and Secondo end together, but this would have been a proofreading and PDF compilation mess with Finale. Thanks Dorico team!
Oops, I wrote in too soon. If I have Primo on the right and Secondo on the left, how do I force multibar rests to be created on one page, if the other two hands at that piano are also playing at the same time? Maybe I don’t have this set up correctly after all. If I’ve created a Piano 1 part for 4 hands, is there a way to have multibar rests in the Primo for passages that only the Secondo has? Currently Dorico isn’t creating multibar rests unless all 4 hands at that piano are resting.
Heh, this is an edge case that we hadn’t considered. We currently look for multi-bar rests in all instruments in the layout, regardless of which music frame chain they’re in, so that means you will indeed only get multi-bar rests if everybody is resting. There’s no way to force a multi-bar rest where Dorico doesn’t think one should be, unfortunately. The only thing I can think of is to have each piano in a separate flow, which would work OK for the part layout but obviously isn’t practical for the full score.
Actually it does work. I tried a test example and it worked without issue.
Thanks, this seems to work! I can just set the score to only include Flow 1 so it works fine for that too, and I’ll copy everything to the individual part flows once I’ve finished editing. The only real PITA is that I’m going to have to manually create all the cues, right? I imagine there’s no way to have Shift-U reference another flow.
Indeed so.
Since page turns occur simultaneously for Primo and Segundo of each player (of each piano), it would seem that multi-measure rests are of relatively limited value and that individual measures with one of the other players’ notes cued in might be clearer.
But of course you may have excellent reasons for wanting it the way you do and should be able to engrave it as you wish.
Personally, I find cueing in short rests, say 2, 3, or 4 bars at a moderate tempo, more distracting than helpful. I would much rather count them and be looking ahead to my next entrance than following along with the cues. I’m almost done and the flow method did work pretty well. Most of the cues are from the other pianist sharing the bench anyway so it was only a few times I had to jump from flow to flow to copy them in as I could usually just take them from the neighboring page.
Quick question, since I have to manually create all cues, does anyone have a reliable way to create whole rests with cue notes? Sometimes just moving the cue notes into another voice creates them automatically, sometimes not. I have a few annoying bars where I can’t figure out how to get the whole rests to show.
EDIT: Nevermind, Shift-B “rest” finally worked, I just needed to find the right voice to move the notes into.