I am a serious hobby musician who recently started piano lessons after many years of playing guitar and few other ethnic string instruments. I’ve also been using DAWs and VSTs for years, with some basic keyboard skills.
Piano lessons pushed me more towards music notation and I am currently running a trial of Dorico Pro with the intention to purchase it when it goes on sale. I initially intended to use it as a helper tool for learning and practicing notation, but I quickly realised that it is actually just few steps from being a full-featured DAW (for MIDI). And as a software developer, I really like that it has scripting, even though it’s not finished and supported yet. I see Dorico as a really beautiful fusion between classical and modern.
Back to the topic. For sake of learning, I am writing “Für Elise” score in Dorico and I immediately noticed that the default beaming differs from the usual one for this piece.
From my understanding, Dorico uses standard conventions for beaming, based on time signature. Following this logic, I managed to get the beaming from the second screenshot by alternating time signatures between [3]/8 and 6/16 and then hiding all the time signatures except the initial one. Is there a more elegant way to do this? For example, can you tell Dorico to use 6/16 convention for beaming notes in a selected bar, but without actually introducing the new time signature?
Also, when I enter [3]/8, the signpost says “3/8 (e,3)” and for 6/16 it says “6/16 (x, 3+3)”. What is the meaning of “e” and “x”?
Which edition do you use? With SE you would have to use Write → Notations → Beaming → Join beams on all these notes, which could be tedious. With Elements or Pro, you should be able to use Library → Notation Options → Beaming to change the default beaming for the flow. I have Elements, so I’m not sure if there’s a better option for Pro.
I have a similar case, and this solved it. Thank you! What I’m wondering about is inputting ([3]/8) as the meter. I’m not seeing this documented, except as in the case of asymmetrical meter groupings ([3+2+2]/8). Is this a documented feature, or a workaround? Thanks.
If you select 3/8 from the right-hand panel, then you get the correct, grouped beaming.
The popover’s behaviour may not be explicitly documented, but it is consistent with how it works for other values. There’s a case that it ought to be a compound time by default – but then if you wanted the opposite, what would you type?
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your answer, @benwiggy . What I’m getting at is, how would a user find out about this behavior, except to search the forums? It seems like something that should be documented, if it is an intended behavior. And how does it work? Do the brackets cause Dorico to display the 3/8 time signature while notating 6/16? And if so, is this intended, or is it a lucky accident?
Thanks, @Janus , but again, the documentation doesn’t mention putting brackets around a single number. I can see how it forces all of the 3 eighth notes to be grouped together. It would be nice to have the documentation say this explicitly, as I would have never inferred this from the spec as written.
In any case, not complaining, just trying to find a clarification.
“Enter the division you want in square brackets into the popover. Use brackets around a single number for a single division.” That would have worked for me. I guess I’m just slow. In any case, thanks!
]
