Hi everyone,
I’m trying to beam this measure [6+4+3]/16 in 7/8. Split beam doesn’t work (the last 16th rest of the first group will not split from the 16th note before it), I can’t create a dotted rest at the end of the measure (I’ve tried inputting it with force duration but it won’t create it), also I thought I should be able to just highlight things I want to beam together and press “beam together” and it worked before but it doesn’t work in this case. Please help.
Welcome to the forum @tomaszry !
A cursory example for me, in 7/8 with Notation Options > Beam Grouping set to show stemlets, certainly allows me to select the first quaver rest, Cmd-click the third quaver rest (the one currently at the start of the 2nd beam) and beam them together using the menu option.
If you created the beams originally by forcing a stemlet beam, you’ll need to use that option again to override it and extend the forced stemlet beam (rather than the generic “beam together”), but it’s worth knowing about the per-flow defaults in Notation Options, as this can save you a lot of manual work if you always want stemlet beams in a flow.
I can also select the last semiquaver rest, press O to force its duration, then press 5 then . (full stop) to turn it into a dotted quaver.
If you can’t do so in your project, try resetting the beaming first? Or share the project file itself (or a cut-down duplicated version) for someone to investigate.
Thanks for your reply. Nothing works though. However, I made some tests and strangely it’s only the percussion part where I can’t do anything with the beaming. When I copied the same music into a melodic instrument part, I could do whatever I wanted and it all worked. Any ideas?
It works fine for me on a percussion kit in Dorico 5.1.40. What version are you using? Percussion kit editing was more limited in earlier versions.
3.5. So, it’s just not going to work with my version?
Even in 3.5 you should be able to input a time signature that does what you want automatically. In your case Shift-M [3+2+2]/8 Enter
Input with the caret active and confirm with Alt/Opt-Enter if you want it to be local to this staff.
Sorry for the confusion, I made a mistake in the first post, the grouping I’m trying to make is [7+4+3]/16 but in 7/8 meter. Dorico puts it in 14/16. Is there a way to do this in 3.5 automatically or have the manual beaming working for the percussion parts?
Not via the meter, no. If you want to show 7/8 you will have to change the beaming manually.
Ok, so then we get back to the problem of manual beaming not working with the percussion parts for me:) Is this fixable or just not supported in the 3.5?
Can you share an example (Dorico file), telling what you want to achieve, and let us experiment on the file?.
Thank you. I’m trying to beam the bottom two percussion parts like the rest of the instruments (7+4+3 16ths) but I can’t use “split beam” or “beam together” with just these two parts for some reason. It doesn’t do anything when I’m trying the beaming options. For instance, the sixteenth note rest in the middle of the bar just wont stick to the eighth-note rest on the right no matter what I do it always beams with the sixteenth note before it.
beaming.dorico (455.4 KB)
You can at least add the 14/16 time signature in the 2nd bar and hide it, leaving any manual fix up to the first bar only.
Have you tried changing the Notation Option to show stemless in all beams automatically? I’m not sure if that will work on percussion kit staves in 3.5 but it’s worth a go.
I think I have the option for showing stemlets checked. I guess I can try the hacks with hiding the time signatures and such but I first wanted to determine whether this problem is something that I’m doing wrong, an unwanted option that I have checked or if it’s a bug with the 3.5. Thank you!
Is this what you wanted to achieve? Or have I misunderstood?
It was done using only beam together and force duration. If you don’t want the 16th rest at the start of the 2nd group, you could force duration to an 8th, or even a dotted 8th.
beaming-edit.dorico (1.0 MB)
I see, but you’ve created this with the newer version of Dorico, yes? When I opened it, it looks like this:
which brings me back to the earlier question of whether this is impossible to do with 3.5? Thank you.
I think we can conclude that, yes, it is. Dorico 4 introduced lots of improvements to the handling of rests in unpitched percussion kits. If your computer is able to run Dorico 5, it might be a good time to consider an update to the latest version.