Unpitched percussion

The term unpitched percussion covers all percussion instruments that are not tuned to specific pitches. This includes instruments such as bass drum, guiro, maracas, cymbals, and shakers.

Dorico Pro provides comprehensive support for unpitched percussion notation, with flexible options for combining music for multiple instruments into percussion kits that can then be displayed differently in different layouts. You can also define percussion kits as drum sets, which changes the default stem directions of notes.

The different percussion kit presentation types in Dorico Pro are layout-specific, meaning you can present percussion kits in different ways in different layouts. For example, you could present a percussion kit as a five-line staff in the full score layout but with single-line instruments in the percussion part layout.

You can also customize and create new playing technique-specific noteheads for unpitched percussion. This allows you to indicate how notes are played by using different noteheads for different playing techniques on each instrument in percussion kits.