I’m having a problem with entering dotted notes - but only sometimes.
I’m in 3/4, and if I enter a dotted quarter note on beat 1 all is fine,
The problem I’m running into is tying a quarter note on beat three to a dotted half-note in the next measure.
Here’s my process.
Input the quater note on beat three
Hit =
Input half note
Hit the “.” to add dot.
What happens is after I input the half note, a quarter rest “floats” after the half note. Then when I hit “.” to add the dot, I now get 2 quarter rest (the half note becomes a quarter note).
Dorico considers notes in the same tie chain as a single note. That gives many advantages, and requires to think about dots differently than in other software.
After you input the half note (tied with the quarter on third beat oif the previous bar) now this tie chain represents for itself a dotted half note (if you go outside note entry pressing ESC, and look on the left panel you will see that the dot is active for that selection, as Dorico “translates” the tie chain length correctly as a “dotted half note”, spread over the barline).
If you now press the dot shortcut (that functions as a toggle between dotted and undotted), this action will eliminate the dot to this “dotted half note”, making it an half note (spread over the barline).
The fastest way to input what you want here, would be to move the caret on beat three, and enter a whole note (with the number 8 and choosing a pitch). Dorico will take care of the correct notation.
Here a video with some further explanation (sorry for the poor quality, but I have run out of space on my Cloud…):
Thanks for the explanation. I have to say that is the one thing that I still can’t get my head around in Dorico. I much prefer to add the notes as they appear in the score. (ie. a quarter-note tied over the bar to a dotted half-note, as opposed to entering in a whole-note).
So with this system how would you add a quarter-noted tied over the bar to a whole-note in 4/4?
Gotcha, it’s the dotted note that is causing the problem in the first example.
So there’s no setting to make the “.” just add a dot to a note?
Also I saw a short video from Dorico that by double tapping a note value in quick succession you get a dotted note. But that doesn’t seem to work for me.
@westla
The way in which Dorico treats tie chains as a single note has really much more advantages then disadvantages. Among others it makes possible to move notes at any rhythmical positions (dragging them or via copy and paste or elegantly using the moving shortcutsOption(Alt) + right and left arrow keys and Dorico takes care of the display (according to the Notation Options, that you can customise).
Of course you can add dots, but they will be added (or subtracted) to the sum value of the tie chain, as explained. One faster and elegant method is to use the shortcut Shift+Alt(Option)+right or left arrowsto prolong or shorten your notes accordingly to the set grid value, and customise the Notation Options/Note Grouping, as desired. And combining all this with Force Duration for local changes.
If, for the time being, you feel more comfortable to add a dot to a note (rather then to a tie chain), you can write your notes untied, using the dots as you are now used to, and the select the first one (outside of note entry) and press T to tie to the next note (you can repeat the T shortcut until all your notes are tied together).
If you want particular subdivisions inside the Tie chain, you can press O, before tying, to force the visual duration of the notes that you have already written. Or you can after the fact separate long notes at a desired rhythmic position, uniting them, then forcing their duration with O and retie, and the visual duration will be preserved (but don’t worry about those method, for now: try to acclimatise first to this new way of thinking)
It takes a short time to get used to this method of thinking. I hope you will find it as comfortable as many user find it, and will, after a short time, discover its advantages.
(also the Team wrote that in future the handling of tie chains selections will be improved further, so stay tuned )
Not if you have tied notes and are using the “articulations/dots/accidentals after note” setting, because Dorico will apply the dot to the entire tie chain.
IMO, Dorico gives the most predictable results using duration and articulations/dots/accidents before pitch. When I came here from Finale, that took some getting used to. Your mileage may vary.
You don’t need to enter it this way, no. The methods available to you depend on how you have note entry set up. I use duration and dots before pitch, so it’s no problem for me to enter a dotted half note, then a tie, then the second dotted half note. If you are using dots after the note, then when you try to dot the second half note you will wind up dotting (adding time to) the entire tie chain.
You certainly can enter this as a dotted whole note, if you want.
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