I’m struggling with the condensing feature splitting a phrase into two voices which I’d like stemmed together. I searched a ton, read a ton, and decided to upload a 99% stripped copy of my Dorico project hoping someone can tell me the fix.
I’ve worked out that some staff-attached text seems to be the culprit causing this (deleting it magically causes the split voices to group together). I do need the text though.
Does anyone know how I can keep the text and achieve a single grouped voice? test.dorico (953.9 KB)
Ah, I gave it a try, and you’re right, it groups the phrase. But in my actual score, I can’t have that text doubled on both players, it only applies to one. And unfortunately, hiding the text on one brings the split stems issue back.
Rather than hiding that text, try changing its colour to white (and, in the full project, place it where it won’t obscure anything) or set its opacity to zero.
I have no idea why the following worked for me, but I’ll describe what I did in case you want to try it yourself.
In Engrave mode, select the whole-bar rest in bar 5.
Insert a Condensing change (in the Engrave menu) - after clicking the box for Voice 1, Voice 2 (in the top LH corner) I went down to Manual Condensing, clicked on Condensing Approach, then clicked on Reset and OK.
In Write mode, select the purple signpost for the Condensing Change and use alt+left arrow to move it to the note just before the rest at the end of bar 4. The preceding notes (at least for me) will now group as you want. The only thing you might need to change (in Engrave mode) is the direction of the tie on the lower note.
EDIT 1:
Fly in the ointment!
If you hide the purple Condensing Change signpost, there is a half rest underneath. Moving the signpost makes the rest disappear, but it also changes the condensing.
I even tried starting a new project and entering the notes exactly as you have in the one you supplied - same result.
EDIT 2:
Some more observations.
It does indeed seem to be the presence of the text in bar 6 that is causing the condensing problem following the rest in bar 2. A dynamic has the same effect.
If the rest in bar 2 is replaced with notes in both voices, then the condensing misbehaves from where the notes start, ie bar 1.
If a note in both voices at the same rhythmic position in bar 1 is replaced with a rest, then the condensing before the rest is OK, but after the rest is wrong.
If the text/dynamic is attached to a note at the same rhythmic position (bar 6), the condensing from bar 2 onward behaves as it should.
Sounds like a bug to me. But the workaround I’ve landed on based on your observations is to move my text to a rhythmic position with a note a couple bars forward in my actual score, and shift it visually back in engrave mode. Huzzah!
It’s not a bug: if you have different dynamics, playing techniques, text, etc., for the two players that are being condensed, that will prevent Dorico from combining the music of the two players onto a single stem.
That’s right. The previous phrase extends until the start of the next one, and phrases only start with notes, not with rests. If you add a note at the same position as the text, you’ll see that right away Dorico will then condense the two voices in the previous bars onto a single stem.
Ahh, ok, I understand. So the solution was simply to start a “reset” condensing change, good grief. I thought I had tried that to no avail, clearly I did something wrong previously. Many thanks to this community!
