Dorico’s way of handling beam works wonderfully in 4/4. I almost never have to manually adjust beaming or use force duration. However, this is not the case in other time signatures. The following photo shows two lines of music: top one I have manually adjusted, and the bottom is Dorico’s default.
I feel that the beaming algorithm needs serious updating for these times signatures as a lot of the default beamings are not correct.
The rule I am following is that everything is beamed in quarter note groups. Adjacent pairs of quarter notes may be beamed together provided they don’t cross the half bar (such as in 4/4, 6/4) or a major pulse in a hybrid metre (5/4, 7/4)
I hope this is something that will be fixed to work as well as it does in 4/4.
Hi Chuck,
Have you tried inputting the meter with [1+1]/4 instead of 2/4, and [1+1+1]/4 instead of 3/4 ? Dorico responds quite well to that kind of user guidance…
Neither changes the beaming at all. I suspect that entering [1+1]/4 is the same as just entering 2/4 because if I enter 2/4 and then turn on “numerator style: beat group” from the properties panel, I get [1+1]/4. Same goes for [1+1+1]/4 and 3/4.
To prevent beams from including rests, go to the Beam Grouping page of Notation Options and set ‘Rests in beam groups’ to ‘Break beams at rests’.
To get the other beam groups as you show them in your edited line, set ‘Eighth note (quavers) in quarter note (crotchet) denominator time signatures’ to ‘Break beams at beat boundaries’.
(This won’t affect 4/4, as the options for time signatures with half-bars like 4/4 are separate.)
Thanks Daniel. Your suggestion is getting me close, but not quite all the way. It will reduce the editing time for now.
Is more in-depth note grouping and beaming grouping options something that can/will be added in the future?
A way to globally customize the beaming of a particular rhythm in a certain time signature would be fantastic, similar to how project default appearances for chord symbols functions (although I have no idea how difficult this would be to program).
Either way, I appreciate your help!
We work hard to avoid the kind of table-lookup-based approach that a set of preset beaming patterns for specific rhythms would imply. Certainly we will return to the area of note and beam grouping in future, but our preferred approach will be to enrich the algorithmic approach we are currently taking, rather than falling back on preset tables of patterns.