Can someone remind me where I find the option to tailor the default behavior of beam groups like this example below? I’m in 4/4 and because it’s all syncopated 16th notes, I’d like each beat barred separately, in other words, the beam should break after the 3rd note in this screenshot. Where do I find this pref?
(I’m a little surprised that Dorico’s default isn’t to break the beam, because I rarely see it engraved like this in published scores.)
I’m not at my computer but it’s in Notation Options>Note Grouping
I just found Notation Options > Beam Grouping, but none of the options there seem to govern this specific notation (as far as I can tell).
As I said: Note Grouping is what you need to look in… There’s a section in there about syncopation from memory.
Ah, I found it: Notation Options > Note Grouping > Syncopation > Notation of short-long-short patterns.
It’s not a perfect fix because in the Dorico example, I’d rather have the left notation, but for my particular syncopated 16th notes, I’d rather have the right option. So I guess I’ll have to toggle this on a per-score basis and then override as necessary. (I wish there was a pref that let me customize this in more detail.)
You could choose your preferred option here - and change the few special spots manually via Force Duration.
As a player (that’s the people who have to read the notation) I would probably feel safer, if the notation was consistent throughout the one piece.
@k_b yes that’s what I’ll end up having to do.
But my complaint stands that Dorico’s options lead to a situation where one type of notation is ideal and commonplace, but another is not.
In the Dorico screenshot above, the left option (“notate as single notes”) is the more straightforward and commonplace way of notating 8ths/quarters. But if I leave it set to “notate as single notes” then my own 16th note example above is grouped in a less usual way. I can’t win (unless of course I manually override as necessary, which is what I’ll have to do).
The most efficient way that occurs to me:
That way you won’t have to re-enter anything.
@Mark_Johnson great tip, thank you.