Adding rhythm slashes

First Steps
Product
Dorico
Version
5.0
Language
English
Document type
Webhelp
ft:openMode
fluidtopics

As this blues song involves lots of improvisation, you can use slash regions to fill bars with rhythm slashes to indicate those players should improvise.

Procedure

  1. In bar 1, select the bar rest on the trombone staff.

    • We recommend doing this in the full score, where by default empty bars are not consolidated into multi-bar rests.

  2. Shift-click the bar rest in bar 4 on the trombone staff.
  3. Press Shift-R to open the repeats popover.
  4. Enter slash into the popover.

    Repeats popover above the trombone staff with the entry for a slash region

  5. Press Return to close the popover and input a slash region spanning the selection.

    Slash region input on the trombone staff in bars 1-4

    • Dorico automatically displays the appropriate number of slashes for the duration and the current time signature. For example, if this were in 6/8, Dorico would show two dotted slashes in each bar.

  6. Repeat steps 1 to 5 for the banjo and top piano staff.
    Tip

    Alternatively, you can select the slash region on the trombone staff and Alt/Opt-click the start of bar 1 on the banjo staff and top piano staff.

    Slash regions input on the trombone, banjo, and top piano staves

    • However, in the recording, only the clarinet plays on beat 4 in bar 4.

  7. Select any part of the slash regions in bars 1-4 on the trombone, banjo, and piano staves.
  8. Press Shift-Alt/Opt-Left Arrow to shorten the slash regions back to the end of beat 3.

    • The number of presses required depends on your rhythmic grid resolution Rhythmic grid selector in the status bar.

    Slash regions shortened

  9. In bar 5, select the bar rest on the trombone staff.
  10. Shift-click or Ctrl/Cmd-click the bar rest in bar 16 on the trombone staff.
  11. Input a slash region.

    Second slash region input starting from bar 5

    • If these regions were adjacent, the second would have a different highlight color to distinguish them.

      Example adjacent slash regions

  12. Repeat steps 9 to 11 for the banjo.
  13. Input slash regions on the cornet staff in bars 5-7 and bar 9 (beat 2) to bar 12.

    • You should now have rhythm slashes throughout bars 1-16 for the cornet, trombone, and banjo. However, the fermatas in bar 16 do not appear automatically in slash regions. Instead, you can input notes in stemless slash voices on those beats.

  14. Select any part of the slash regions in bars 5-16 on both the trombone and banjo staves.
    Slash regions selected
  15. Press Shift-Alt/Opt-Left Arrow to shorten the slash regions back to the end of beat 2.

    • The number of presses required depends on your rhythmic grid resolution Rhythmic grid selector in the status bar.

    Slash regions shortened
  16. In bar 16, double-click the trombone staff on beat 3; that is, just after where the slash region ends.
  17. Press Shift-Alt/Opt-V until the caret indicator shows you have created a new, stemless slash voice.
    The caret when adding a new stemless slash voice
  18. Press 6 to select quarter notes (crotchets).
  19. Press Y twice to input two quarter note stemless slash notes.
    Notes input in the stemless slash voice

    • Y inputs default pitches, and is particularly useful for unpitched percussion. Clefs determine the default pitch for pitched instruments, such as G on treble clef staves.

  20. Press Left Arrow until the caret is at the start of beat 3 in bar 16, then press Down Arrow to move the caret down to the banjo staff.
    Caret moved to the banjo staff
  21. Repeat steps 17 to 19.
  22. Press Esc or Return to stop note input.

Result

You have input slash regions and input notes into stemless slash voices. Using a combination of slash regions and slash voices can be useful when only some bars require specific rhythms, for example.

Notes in stemless slash voices input on trombone and banjo staves
Tip

You can also add slash regions using the Repeat Structures panel on the right of the window, which you can show by clicking Panels Panels button in the Notations toolbox, then Repeat Structures Repeat Structures button in the Notations toolbox in the Notations toolbox.