I need to create a beamed group with notes shared between two staves. As long as there are no simultaneous notes that are on different staves, using a centered beam and forcing stem directions allows me to create the example on the left.
If I have simultaneous notes in different staves, beaming seems to work only if I have the beam above or below all the notes, as in the middle example.
In the example on the right, the simultaneous f and g in the fifth spot have prevented me from getting stems in the directions I want, with a centered beam.
Even with notes or beams selected, “custom centered beam” presents me with a blank window, with nothing to select or alter. Is there a way to manually shift stem positions?
If anyone has ideas about how to deal with this, I would appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Geoff
(Mac, Dorico 5.1)
Indeed, Dorico does not support this specific kind of cross-staff notation, I’m afraid. It has been requested before and it’s something we will support in a future version, though I can’t say exactly when that will be.
(You can’t use the Custom Centered Beam dialog in this situation: that is for creating a beam between notes that are all on the same staff, rather than crossing between staves.)
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Hi @Geoffls, and welcome to the Forum.
Daniel already answered.
But, just in case, as you ask how to handle this (for the time being), one possibility is to put the bichords in one staff and show the hands distribution with a vertical line, adjusting its top and bottom position. And activate in Layout Options/Note spacing the options Optical spacing for beams between staves.
In Layout Options > Note Spacing, activate Optical spacing for beams between staves. Enter the 6:4x tuplet as shown in the first measure below. In an additional voice, create a 6:1q tuplet and enter a quarter note F in the fifth position inside the tuplet as shown in the second measure. Combine the first and second measures to create the third measure. Remove the rests inside the 6:1q tuplet, hide the number and bracket for that tuplet and flip the stem on the quarter note as shown in the fourth measure. In engrave mode, lengthen the stem of the quarter note to reach the centered beam and move the quarter note to the right in note spacing mode as shown in the fifth measure:
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Thank you so much for your responses to my question. Both suggestions for techniques gave nice results; John’s process is complex to perform, but creates the result I was looking for.
