TUTORIALS

#TipsTuesday

RESOURCES

A plethora of help, shortcuts, templates and more are also available in our Resources section.

Resources

ARTICLES

Tip: Notation tips for creating worksheets

by | Apr 14, 2020 |

 

  1. There is no requirement to use time signatures or meter, simply input your music without worrying about bars or barlines.
  2. Force accidentals to be shown or hidden.
  3. Hide stems to show only noteheads.
  4. Make music items larger, by any percentage.
  5. Use noteheads that display the pitch of the note.
  6. Remove Rests so they simply do not appear in your music.
  7. Hide Time Signatures – you may need to adjust note spacing (see below) in order to retain a space to write one in by hand.
  8. Delete barlines wherever necessary, without the need to rewrite lots of music.
  9. Use hidden Coda sections to create gaps between questions.
  10. Adjust Note Spacing to position music items exactly where you need them.
  11. Set the barline used at end of flow. Choose from single or double barlines, or even no barline at all.

Tip: Make a music worksheet

by | Apr 7, 2020 |

 

  1. Add a new flow of music for every question in your worksheet. Input the music you will use in your worksheet, however you can always add further questions later on if required.
  2. Use Project Info (found in the File menu) to give your worksheet a title (use the Title field in the Project tab) and to populate each Flow Headings with the text that will be comprise the questions.
  3. In Engrave mode, disclose the Flow Headings section and double-click the Flow Heading to edit it. Double-click the text to edit it and apply the required formatting. In this example I reduce the size of the text and align it to the left to look more like questions.
  4. Use Layout Options (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+L) to allow multiple flows on the same page. In this example I have also reduced the Flow heading bottom margin to position it closer to the music.

Tip: Create a vocal score layout with piano reduction

by | Mar 24, 2020 |

 

  1. Sometimes you may have a project for choir and orchestra, and need to produce a vocal score that contains a piano reduction. The piano reduction should not appear in the Full score.
  2. Add a new player and assign a piano to it. Create your piano reduction, perhaps using some of Dorico’s powerful editing features.
  3. In Setup mode, select the Full score from the Layouts panel, and in the Players panel uncheck the Piano player. This will mean the piano reduction is not shown in the Full score layout.
  4. Create a new Custom Score layout, give it a name, and check any player you want to appear. In this case, that would be all of the vocal players and the piano reduction. Remember also to check all flows you want to appear in the layout.
  5. Choose the Vocal score from the layout selector in the toolbar. You may need to make some changes to layout options in order to get the layout looking exactly how you want.

Tip: Requantize parts of a recording to notate tuplets

by | Feb 25, 2020 |

 

  1. Remember to set the Quantization Options before starting real-time recording.
  2. Unless your recording will contain mostly tuplets, I suggest disabling Detect tuplets.
  3. Once you have recorded you music, select any notes that should be written as tuplets (holding down Ctrl/Cmd to add to the selection).
  4. Go to Edit > Requantize… and choose the relevant settings for your performance (this will include enabling Detect tuplets if you are wishing to requantize those notes as tuplets).
  5. Press OK, and the selected music is requantised using the new settings. You can do this as much as you need across an entire performance in order to achieve the correct notation.

Tip: Convert the first bar of a flow into a pick-up bar

by | Feb 18, 2020 |

 

  1. In Dorico, there is no penalty for changing your mind. If you decide that the first bar of your piece should be a pick-up bar, it is very easy to edit.
  2. Remove the unwanted time at the beginning of the first bar. You can do this either by using the System Track (hold down Alt/Option in order to be able to select beats rather than bars), or by using the Shift+B Bars and Barlines popover. The syntax for removing time is a minus sign followed buy a number and the unit (q = quarter note, e = eighth note and so on).
  3. Edit the time signature/meter to include a pick-up bar by double-clicking it, and adding the number of beats the pick-up should have after a comma.
  4. It doesn’t matter which order you perform these two actions.

Tip: Specify the tuplet unit in the popover

by | Feb 11, 2020 |

 

    1. During note input, press ; to open the tuplet popover.
    2. Type the ratio, followed by the shorthand for the unit (separate by a space).
    3. The unit can be written as a letter: generally the first letter of the duration value (e.g. q = quarter note, e = eighth note, x = sixteenth note and so on).
    4. Or you can use the number that corresponds to Dorico’s default key command (e.g. 6 = quarter note, 7 = half note, 8 = whole note and so on).

Tip: Fine-tune the playback of dynamics

by | Feb 4, 2020 |

 

    1. Use the new dynamics lane in Play mode to emphasise a phrase without changing the written dynamic.
    2. Use the Play mode tools to draw in new dynamic levels, including gradual dynamics, to add nuance to your music.
    3. This can be very useful when needing to call out a phrase of music that is otherwise directed to be at the same dynamic level as other parts.
    4. Editing the dynamics lane does not affect the written notation at all, it purely serves to add nuance to playback.

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