If push the RH into the green or red color first and then use alt-N from the left hand at least it doesn’t combine the notes.
However very weird things may happen when I move between the voices in either direction (Sometimes before I pressed alt-N, sometimes after). Some bars do work; but often inexplicable rests appear.
PiAm02DownDroptTheBreeze.dorico (1.5 MB)
what is the best strategy for getting bass notes moved into the top without strange side effects. Or to ask the question another way: if I find that I’ve got bars full of weird rests how do I get rid of them?
Alt+N corresponds to Move to staff above: it will cut/paste your selection in upstem voice 1 of the staff above So, if there are already notes in upstem voice one in your top staff, all notes will merge in the same voice (problematic if the durations are not the same, as you can see!)
You can try: N (without Alt): it corresponds to Cross to staff above: the notes stay in their original voice, but will show up in the other staff
Or Cut > Paste Special > Paste into voice > Choose either an existing (but not used here) voice, or a new (downstem) voice.
That being said, as a pianist I must say it looks to me much more legible as it is, with this voice in the bottom staff!
As usual “it depends…”! Do you really want to move the notes (so they become part of the top and are removed from the bottom) or do you want them just to display on the top (cross-staff notes)?
If you move them (alt-N) they will be merged with existing voices on the top - which can cause problems, particularly merging into tuplets (as you have discovered).
Simply using cross staff (N) avoids this, as they remain a voice on the lower staff.
(OT: Is there any reason you have put the tuplets in two separate voices? It is generally easier to keep things predictable with as few voices as possible)
N(without Alt): is what I wanted . I wasn’t even aware it existed; I always thought the alt was required.
RE “the tuplets in two separate voices?” - This is a transcription (for rehearsal purposes) of a voice & guitar piece. The guitar piece was composed in Dorico. Unfortunately when you compose you’re forever moving notes and cutting and pasting - inevitably it ends up less logical than if you knew exactly what you wanted on day one. These particular 12 songs have taken me around five months (half time working).
You can easily change the voice of a note (or a selection of notes) using V. This will cycle the selection through each available voice. As you do this rationalisation, unnecessary rests will also be removed. (It’s just a suggestion to make your life simpler!)
Now you have shown me this very useful feature I’ve also discovered that after using it the staves in the Grand Staff are very connected.
Now, sometimes, when I edit/insert notes in the the one staff Dorico creates connecting beams up/down to the other staff. I guess this is totally intentional.
So when I have a chunk of music with the staves ‘connected’ how do I disconnect the right and left hands so I can edit them independently?
Separately copying and pasting the left and right hands into two new staffs.
Separately putting every thing in each of those into a new voice
Removing the Grand Staff notes
Separately Pasting two new staffs back into the grand staff
Separately putting each half of the Grand Staff into a new voice
I don’t know how many of those steps are absolutely required. But it fixed it for me.
I’m always hard up against deadlines, but if I find myself in the same situation I’ll send a file with an obvious reproducible case. I’m sure it’s ‘working as expected’ - it’s just I don’t fully understand what ‘expected’ means. (I did read all the help on Grand Staff in the PDF).
