Dorico

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I became a Dorico user in September 2024 upon the announcement of Finale’s sunsetting by SmartMusic. I’d been a Finale-ite since 1989 (thirty-five years!), and knew that although Finale would still run for the time being, it wouldn’t last forever. So I took advantage of the “crossgrade” offer given to Finale users and bough Dorico Pro 5.

I still had a few Finale-based projects to finish, so I didn’t get started on Dorico for a little while. As expected, I found a new/different way of thinking in my new software which was quite logical… but I still had to adapt.

This is a new experience for many of us, so here are some free (and hopefully helpful) thoughts and ideas. Download away!

Adding a Selective Damp to Dorico

As of this writing, Dorico doesn’t have the handbell community’s selective damp symbol. However, there’s a way of adding one. Thanks to Dan Kreider at Dorico for showing me how! How to Add a Selective Damp to Dorico (PDF download)

Dorico project template

Why would you be interested in this Dorico project template? Read on! If you haven’t seen the news (as of August 2024), the FinaleMusic team is sunsetting their music notation application. Don’t worry; it’ll work properly for a while yet. They just aren’t going to make more updates, and at some point will also end …

How to make a Dorico BUC

Making a Dorico BUC requires just a bit of perseverance. That’s because Dorico doesn’t have a feature for doing that (yet). Long ago, Finale didn’t have a plugin for generating a BUC (Bells Used Chart, also HUC = Handbells Used Chart). That meant we quasi-prehistoric users typically made a spreadsheet on which to track the …

The Squiggle

The Sk (shake) notation, or “squiggle”, appears in several ways on a score: As the symbol Sk As the symbol Sk, with a squiggle extending to the right As a squiggle For the sake of clarity, the Sk should always be present. However, a lone Sk, with or without a squiggle, can appear ambiguous above …