So this is a bit of a strange problem.
First: I’m inputting meterless music, but I still use some bar lines, mostly because there doesn’t seem to be an option to treat new systems like bars for the purposes of accidentals (e.g., if I wrote an F# in the first system and the entire piece was one continuous bar, and an F# showed up in the 12th system again, Dorico wouldn’t mark it sharp because it’s the same measure). If there’s a way around this, please let me know. I explored the accidental options and didn’t see anything that would help there, but it’s entirely possible I missed something.
My current issue:
Early on, I have a whole note where I meant to put a half note. I can’t figure out any way to change it that doesn’t either leave an extra half note rest somewhere, or shift all the music that follows back a half note (ignoring bar lines). You’d think that with meterless music it wouldn’t matter that the music shifts back, but if I already have bar lines in place then I have to delete all the bar lines and redo them. The main issue is that I didn’t notice the error until after I had finished the music entry and moved to the engraving stage, so to change that one note I’d have to redo most of the system breaks and bar lines.
Okay, I figured out a solution. If there’s an easier way please let me know, but I’ll put my solution in case someone else runs into the same issue.
In regular note input mode (not insert), I changed the whole note to a half note, then selected the resulting rest and used edit>remove rests.
Apologies if this seems obvious, but I couldn’t find the answer by searching. Been using Finale for 20+ years and just trying to get my head around Dorico.
That’s not a good solution - Remove Rests is purely visual.
Better is to click where you want to add or remove beats, then type Shift-B to invoke the Bars and Barlines popover, then the number of beats and the beat value, then Enter. In this instance, try selecting the whole note that should be a half note, then type Shift-B -1h Enter.
It doesn’t do exactly what you want, but the “modernist” accidental options might be a workround. Note there are quite a few options available, e.g. not repeating accidentals within the same group of beamed notes. You can add or delete cautionary accidentals to what Dorico gives you.
Another trick is to use “dotted” barlines, but set the engraving rules so the are effectively invisible with zero length dots.
Thanks. For my purposes, a visual solution is adequate in this case, but good to know as in a different circumstance it could cause problems obviously.
Since I already did the “remove rests”, I can’t figure out how to invoke your approach since the note is no longer there to be selected. Is there a way to “restore rests”?
Thanks. I’ll give it another look. I’m not particularly concerned about the barlines from a visual standpoint (though that’s a good trick that could come in handy). Using a modernist option and hiding some unnecessary accidentals might be a better approach.
I have a similar problem, but I can’t find the right formula to type into the Shift-B popover. I created a long cadenza in open meter surrounded by metered music before and after (guessing at the needed amount to lengthen the free bar, and coming pretty close). After all the notes have been entered, a sixteenth rest remains at the end, and I need to get rid of it. (More precisely, after the last note, I see a percussion clef, some horizontal space, and then the sixteenth rest.)
I tried “-1s” and “-.25q” and neither of them changed anything.
Thanks! That got rid of the sixteenth rest, but not the percussion clef marker or the empty space after it. (I can advance the note-entry caret 20 times within that space, and can’t make it continue to the next one where 3/2 time resumes.)
Sixteen is too many; that deleted some of the following music. But knowing this, I was able to delete increments of whole rests until I got it reduced to nothing. So: solved, and thank you!!
(I might have figured this out myself eventually, but for the odd way the rhythmic grid went BACKWARDS from the note-entry caret, even though I could use the right arrow to advance the caret. I seemed to have gotten myself into some strange illegal situation…) But all’s well that ends well.
