I’ve migrated to Dorico from Sibelius and have been importing via xml and it has been going well. On the whole my feeling is that Dorico is absolutely the way forward. I do, however, have one fairly significant gripe, and that is in the area of tuplets.
I’ve searched and read many forum posts on tuplets, so forgive me if I’m missing exactly how to easily and smoothly do what I’m talking about here. That is, something that is not a text or graphic workaround, or something that isn’t a hack that takes a double-digit number of steps to execute.
In this example, I would like to be able, in theory, to be able to easily make the tuplet ratio appear as “5 : [half note symbol]” or “5:2” in 1/8 notes. I know that I could just have the bracket say “5” and be done with it - much of the time that is what I do, I just am using this as an illustrative example.
I understand the stated rationale for tuplets in Dorico is “x notes in the space of y notes” where x and y are the same rhythmic subdivision. Fine - but rigidly limiting tuplet display to this concept more or less ignores the practical experience of musicians “in the field” who play lots of music with tuplets. The way I and many fellow musicians I know actually feel the above example is is with a half note in the “denominator” of the of the tuplet, or maybe 2 quarter notes if the tempo is slower. The current tuplet display rules simply do not reflect how many musicians who actually play such music approach such music - or, I daresay, how many composers compose such music.
Am I missing something? I suspect I’m not as I’ve talked to a few other folks who have run into the same issue. If I’m correct that what I’m asking is not possible, then please consider this a fervent feature request!
There is indeed no way to show the elapsed duration of the tuplet as a note value. I’m not sure what Dorico would do if the duration isn’t expressable by a single (optionally dotted) note value. I don’t recall Sibelius being able to do this either – but perhaps my memory of Sibelius has failed me.
I’m pretty sure you’re right re Sibelius not being able to do this either. I had a look at my older scores to see if that was the case and I think indeed it was.
I’ve tried “5e:1h” or “5e:2q” [following from my above example] as a sort of backdoor way of doing it but that doesn’t give the desired result. It would be fantastic if that was a way to do it.
At any rate, thanks a million for your work with Dorico.
Well I’d be ok with “5:2” if we keep following on from my above example, even if it deviates from the general tuplet protocol. Sometimes that’s the model I follow, other times it would be the notehead one.
If we’re talking about durations of prime numbers, for instance, then something like multiple noteheads tied together would make sense, I think? I’m sure it could get unwieldy pretty quickly.
Except in practice it just isn’t that way a lot of the time.
I understand what you’re saying - it just simply doesn’t reflect performing reality. Or at least it doesn’t tell the whole story. Certainly there are many many people, in my literal experience, who would know exactly what 5:2 in the aforementioned example would mean. 5:4 might be technically correct, but very few humans I know are using 4 1/8 notes to calculate a 5 against it on the fly, especially at a fast tempo; they’re using smaller durations as their reference pulse, either quarter notes or even half notes - and it is my contention that notation should reflect that. Something like a “descriptive” vs “prescriptive” approach.
Again, I know how this works, and I also know how Dorico “wants” people to do it. But given that it is so very easy to write all sorts of “incorrect” rhythmic schemes in Dorico that are “technically correct” because it conforms to input conventions or whatever, it arguably should be possible to have alternatives that are trivial to execute.
The examples I mention above of “5e:1h” or “5e:2q” would be ideal if they worked as I think they should; 5 1/8 notes in the space of one half note or 2 quarters.
I think we’re talking about different “conventions” here. I’m saying that when many musicians see 5 quintuplet 1/8s over the first two beats of a 4/4 bar, they’re not thinking “5 in the space of 4 1/8 notes” - they’re thinking “5 in the space of a half note” or “5 in the space of 2 quarter notes”. That is the sort of thing I want to be reflected in notation.
I just want to second this and say that I would also be extremely appreciative of a way to have x:y where each refers to notes of different values. I understand the rationale behind keeping them the same as a default, but in practice, I, and most of the people I play with and/or compose for, commonly write and see “5:2” with 5 8th notes in the space of 2 quarter notes, and many other non-matching x:y examples.
I’m coming from Finale where this is really easy to do, just for context. I do really like Dorico and prefer it to Finale, at this point - this tuplet issue is the only thing that is an issue for me, but it’s a major one, especially as someone involved in a lot of complex music.
Another example, to illustrate a point, is a piece I was inputting recently where I have 3:11, 3 notes in the space of 11 8th notes (an 11/8 bar). To make these half notes, Dorico insists that it must be 12:11. However, no person that would ever be playing this music is counting the 12. It’s just 3. The process to play that rhythm, in the context and tempo it’s in, is subdividing in 3 and grouping in 11, essentially (playing every 11th of those subdivisions) - and yes in this particular example, you could write it out as a triplet-based rhythm, but that can be an inconsistent look in the context of a series of different tuplets, and there are many similar examples where writing out in that way in terms of the smaller subdivisions wouldn’t be any better.
I’ve given my reasons, which are very good reasons that come from literal decades of performing and recording music like this. Much of it was made using Sibelius which always forced these issues and made scores conform strictly to such conventions. Also I’m not sure why “published” matters to you - or what it technically means to you.
None of this is speculative - this comes from real-world experience playing tuplets accurately in bands, and discussing it extensively with fellow musicians.
Maybe it is correct - but there need to be alternatives to “5 1/8 notes in the space of 4 1/8 notes”.
I understand what you’re saying re arbitrary - in a sense I don’t disagree.
Really all I’m asking for is “5:2 q” and/or “5: 1h” [sub out the letters for the appropriate note values]. It is just as “metrically correct” as “5:4e”.
I understand the importance of published examples, but most of the Brooklyn/NYC jazz/creative music scene that uses more complexity doesn’t publish their scores beyond self-publishing, and I’m wondering if using ‘published’ as a barometer is potentially elevating certain scenes/genres (ie, the ‘new music’ scene) that have more funding above scenes that don’t, and different practices publishing scores.
Sorry - but they are not equivalent. Not least because you assume that the notes themselves all have equal duration (the 5 in your example), where in reality there could be any notation including nested tuplets…
