Hello Dorico team,
I know that this request isn’t of high importance, but would be very nice if are able to realize it!
In Sibelius is also called Respell, in Overture 5 is called Enharmonic (Enharmonic sounds more logical and correct,
because it is the musical term).
In both apps this function works as single with single key command, but in Dorico works as two functions with two separate shortcuts,
which is not a good decision:
Would be great if you can make it work as expected - single (two way) function. There could be second function in case we would like enharmonics with two accidentals.
Rob hello,
First, it’s uncommon such function to be used for respelling E to D##.
Most commonly the people use this function to respell D# to Eb, or vice versa (by single accidental).
E is always enharmonic to Fb and F to E#
But as I have already underlined above… there could be a second separate function for double accidentals.
Rob,
Sorry, but you remind me to a very popular Russian anecdote…
Original in Russian:
“Чукча приходит в издательство и представляет свою книгу. Редактор смотрит и видит вместо букв - неведомые закорючки. Он спрашивает:
— Чукча, ты читать вообще умеешь?
— Чукча, однако, не читатель. Чукча — писатель.”
Translation:
" Chukcha enters the publisher’s office to present his book. The editor sees some strange symbols instead of readable letters. He asks:
Chukcha, are you able to read at all?
Chukcha answers:
Chukcha, of course, isn’t a reader. Chukcha - writer."
So, please read more carefully and try to understand the point before leaving any meaningless comments!
For what it’s worth, I liked the Sibelius way of cycling through different enharmonic possibilities; but I like the Dorico way better. You know exactly what you’ll get, there is no possibility for ambiguity.
To be honest, I like Thurisaz’s proposal (which is also the way Finale handles this, if I remember correctly).
If the programm did always respell E to Fb and you really want D##, you could simply enter the note as D## again.
Of course this would be a trade-off: You get a simpler “switch enharmonic” command on the one hand and have to enter input mode for enharmonics that are “further away” on the other hand.
I would prefer this method: I never was surprised what Finale gave me when switching enharmonics, and I so seldomly needed them with double sharps that the trade-off was totally worth it for me.
Though we thank you for your feedback, we have no plans to change the way the enharmonic respelling functions in Dorico work.
It will hopefully not surprise you to learn that we settled on the current implementation after a careful consideration of all of the factors that go into handling enharmonic spelling, and we determined that a single function that cycles through a bunch of possibilities was insufficient. Firstly, depending on the note you’re respelling it is unpredictable how many times you would have to invoke the command before you get the note spelling you’re looking for. Secondly, for some enharmonic spellings you would have to invoke a single command many more times than simply invoking a single command once to get the desired spelling, since you obviously have in mind the desired spelling before you start and you know whether it is written with the note name above or below the current one. Thirdly, because Dorico works with tonality systems beyond 12-EDO, there is a much greater range of possible spellings (e.g. twice as many even in 24-EDO), making a single function even more unwieldy.
Derrek hello,
Of course I’m not trying to dismiss, or diminish other’s opinion! I accept people with different opinion than mine.
Just I don’t accept people who are leaving meaningless comments without reading to the end what I’d written.
I have nothing against Rob, and I even don’t know him personally, but from his comments it’s obvious that he didn’t read
completely what I’d suggested in the request.
So, this old Russian anecdote perfectly represents his behavior on this post.
I find the new “Respell to avoid double and triple shorts and flats*” in the “Transpose” dialog very handy if you have too many double sharps and flats.
If you select “Unison” as the interval it will respell without the double # and b’ s and keep the music untransposed.
There is logic in the way it is implemented in Dorico. But, like the OP, I do find that cumbersome. My brain doesn’t immediately grasp which direction I’m trying to go. Our brains don’t all work the same way. I have always had trouble mentally visualizing east and west, but no problems with north and south. Using the two different functions I have to stop for a couple of seconds to figure out which direction I’m going and then remembering which key to use.
I would love to have a single key that simply rotates through the various possibilities, with the most likely possibilities being offered first.
For example, if the note is spelled as an Eb, then the function should offer D#, Fbb, C### etc.
I agree the current functions make more sense when changing the enharmonic spelling of a whole phrase of notes.
I think Daniel has really well explained why this behaviour has been implemented, I don’t understand why it has not put an end to this thread…
I am always impressed by how deep and well the team has thought off each feature, so that it does not cause problems with other features or special situations.
And you just did it again. That’s three posts in a row - Daniel, Derrek, and myself.
If you want to be taken seriously here, you are not going about it the right way. Of course if you just want to keep advertising Overture, we don’t really care anyway!
Because 0.0000000001% of the music composed uses that microtonal stuff, and the other 99.9999999% might benefit from having a simpler, less theoretically elegant way to flip a C# to a Db.
I’m sure we will somehow survive without that, but it seems like a reasonable thing to make available as a shortcut command for anybody who might prefer to work that way.
Rob hello,
Hahaha… if you still didn’t understand, I do not advertise Overture… I’m giving it just as the best example for workflow, intuition and ease of use.
Despite that the code is fragile and Don has terrible update policy… As software designer obviously he is absolute genius.
But without a team of well skilled developers and product manager as Daniel… Overture will be killed by it’s father… “If better example for something exists, it always should be given” this is how I’m thinking.
Anyway
As I said above, I’ll live with the current Respell functions…
At the risk of not moving on…Finale was terrible at this, cycling through increasingly unlikely spellings - especially with chords, I tend to delete and re-enter.
