Using 3/8 I get
but I want
I can get this with [3]/8, but […] usually introduces other errors, e.g.
which is completely wrong notation.
Is there some other way, other than Forced Duration or [3]/8, to get Fig. 2?
Did you mean Beam Together rather than Forced Duration?
You can use “Beam Together”. If you assign a keycommand to it, it’s quite easy.
Edit: Ninja’d by @asherber 
Yes, sorry, Beamed Together.
I would like as much “automation” as possible without having to adjust each place.
Sure, but I’ve never understood why Dorico breaks beams like this (as soon as there is a rest on the first or last beat) despite setting explicit Notation options telling it not to.
I do agree!
(and @charles_piano) me too, the setting is very clear
An initial or ending rest should not affect this, IMHO.
In general, you always want [3]/8, because it’s a compound beat. That’s what you get selecting it from the palette. (You don’t need to use brackets for 6/8 or 9/8, though.)
I don’t understand. That’s 3/4. Standard 3/4 gives you two crotchet rests. Are you doing [3]/4…? Don’t use the brackets for 3/4. Only for 3/8.
Oh, sorry about the palette; I must have misremembered.
Finale creates an automatic crotchet rest in 3/8. (E.g. drag the semiquavers onto the 3rd part of an empty bar.)
MuseScore also creates a crotchet rest automatically.
I’ve always heard the “2+1” rule allows the first two beats/sub-beats to be joined.
Though I note that Gould disagrees for 3/8 (p. 161) but allows it in 6/8 and beyond.
There is a Notation Option to split the initial rest:
.. which then gives you this automatically with [3]/8:
Interesting.
OK, so
and the […] format would be a good combination for 3/8 (and 3/4)
Without the setting, we get
which is forbidden by Gould
but if the music also contains 6/8 we get, with the setting,
which is not correct (well, Gould says ‘may’, not ‘must’).
I more often see the 4-rest than 8-rest 8-rest in printed music.
I think the team needs to revise this to work consistently and properly.
I don’t think it’s a problem of consistency or correctness. You are just asking for more options.
Which I would support. For me, the logic seems to get murky with semiquavers and below and the world of ‘secondary beams’ and ‘compound beats’.
I don’t know if more options are really needed, or rather more consistency in the way the current options are applied. For example:
This is with factory Notation options. I’d simply like the same beaming logic to apply for equivalent quarter and eighth note time signatures without having to e.g. input the time signature in a different way (and consequently having to change other Notation options, that will in turn have other consequences).
Also, this setting:
…should not have any influence on 3/8, because 3/8 is not a compound TS. Likewise there are Beam grouping settings for time signatures without a half bar that also influence 4/8 time signatures. So I agree with @Mats_Frendahl that Dorico’s Notation options would benefit from a thorough revision.
You may find that making 3/4 into one compound beat has other undesirable side-effects. I would not recommend doing it. Beaming options for 3/4 are already pretty comprehensive.
For me, it doesn’t seem consistent to treat 3/8 differently from 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8, but there we are.
If you want to add the rests using Force Duration, you just need to create one ‘forced’ quaver rest (or find one somewhere and press O), then Alt-click it to anywhere that’s needed. (Or Duplicate to staff below, etc).
I get that, but what I meant to say was that Dorico’s settings should be correctly labelled. If a setting applies to both simple and compound meters, that should be clear from its description and it should not be under a section in Notation options that is explicitly labelled ‘Compound Time Signatures’.
Yes, I never use [3]/4 since it makes rests incorrect, but we had a discussion some time ago with the “old style” notation
that required [3]/4 if one didn’t want to use Forced Duration. Here is another example where a setting would be useful.
I don’t know enough music theory, but IMO “incorrect rests” should never be allowed. Perhaps they have a use in some music, but I’ve never seen them in print.
I would much prefer a long list of cases in Notation Options than some kind of “generic” formulation.
E.g. (with reservation of incorrect titling)
3/4
(I cannot put images side by side here…)
Amalgated rests
etc., with a clear picture of what an action would do.(*)
I have problems with interpreting all the “elegant” generic (but probably very correct) images and formulations that exist and sometimes overlap in logic.
It wouldn’t matter to me if the list were very long, as long as it’s absolute, complete and clear.
(*) I’m sure the images that exist today are chosen with care, but sometimes I have trouble understanding them and what their action results in.
Force Duration is designed to be the tool you use for situations that are contrary to Dorico’s implementation of the metre. I can’t think of a reason not to use it, as there’s always going to be something that needs to be different.
I’d agree that we need more Notation Options, but there’s nothing wrong with using FD.
It’s not a bad tool for the "Home Composer” that has full control. But for a publisher that gets sent 100s of pages and need to “reset” any score made by “not so skilled operators” with 100s of “fixes” and exceptions it creates total havoc. As publisher/editor I want to be able to reset a score and control 99.999% with general settings. The few special cases where Force Duration is used should be indicated with a Sign Post, and we don’t have that (yet). Same with beaming. There is no tell where such “fixes” are made. I don’t want to spend hours reading through 100s pages. Computers are efficient tools and should help. These current two implementations (FD and Beaming) are close to odl “pen and paper”-level of proofing. Any use of these should be listed on the proofing list, as they are clearly exceptions from the much praised rule based behaviour of Dorico, and is absolutely worth the attention when proofing. We have gotten the excellent “colour accidentals” settings, we only need some tools more in other areas as well.
In Amadeus “exceptions” were made with the x or ba/bl commands and could easily be listed/found. Dorico is a better tool all over, but I would value improvements in this area, for us publishers.
Back in the Sibelius days I often got scores by originators that had used the slur as tie. It was tedious to find them, so I had a plug-in made to find all sequential notes of the same pitch that had slur. I found all errors in seconds, even if the score was 1000s of bars.
This error is harder to do in Dorico but I’m sure I’ll soon be faced with similar ‘creations’ in Dorico and I need tools to handle them efficiently.
