Bar rest disappears

Dorico
1

When I move the voice to the lower staff, the whole rest disappears. Why?

Before
After

2

If you’re doing cross-staff moving, then yes, the default rest disappears. You should be able to add one – try “rest” in the Shift B popover.

1 Like
3

Thanks, @benwiggy I was able to restore the rest, but I was curious as to why it was doing this. Then I realized that in cross staff notation involving both hands the rest is removed. But not as often for one hand.

I think that Dorico needs to make a distinction between cross staff notation that involves centered beaming and therefore requires that the rest be removed and that which doesn’t. This would take care of most cases.

I also think that when Dorico removes things automatically, an alert should explain how to restore them. I find the solution in another thread, but can’t for the life of me find it now in the documentation. I am sure it is there, but finding it would take me a long time. I’d rather just be removing rests manually.

1 Like
4

This is a new distinction to me. Let me make sure I have it right: When a beam is outside cross-staff notes, it indicates they are all played in one hand? As opposed to changing hands, when a beam is between staves?

P.S. Please don’t call this a “whole rest” even though it is the same glyph. I have altered the thread title.

5

@Mark_Johnson Thanks for the correction. I should have written “whole measure rest”, but I sometimes slip.

Here is how I understand the situations:

  1. When the notes of a crossed-staff beamed group are all on the same side of the beam, most of the time they are to be played by one hand. If the other hand isn’t playing something else at the same time, then a rest clarifies that only one hand is playing and which hand is to play the group. This case is illustrated in the example in the OP:

With rest

  1. Like 1. But the other hand is actually playing at the same time, then no rest is needed or desired.

  2. When cross staff notes use a centered beam and there is nothing else going on at the same time most of the time the notes are being played by both hands with the right hand playing the upper staff notes and the left hand playing the lower staff notes. That this is actually the case is shown by the absence of a rest.

Dorico eliminates the rest in all 3 cases. Perhaps it is a lot to ask, but I think that it would be helpful if the rest could remain in place for case 1.