Editing peccadillos

Hello,

• One thing I find odd or awkward in Dorico is the editing of tied notes. Once a note is tied it assumes the new duration and I can’t seem to figure how to edit that note without either making a new duration or erasing it all together. In other words, when notes are tied Dorico treats the rhythm as the amalgam of all of the tied notes, which means if you want to change anything you have to start over from the first articulated note. When there is a rhythm held over several bars, then, you have to essentially erase everything that comes after the first articulated note one way or another.

I’m happy to admit that sometimes it’s my way of thinking that’s the issue with my learning this program (the reconceptualization of rests, for instance), so maybe there’s something I’m missing and would love that feedback. But otherwise it seems that once a note is tied you can’t go back.

• Another oddity to me has to do with pitch editing. Say you have a three note quarter note chord and want it to become a dotted quarter note… Dorico makes you select all three notes of the chord in order to effect that dot, otherwise it will only add to the selected pitch. This seems counter-intuitive to me, in that one would probably want to perform this added rhythmic amount to the whole chord in the vast majority of circumstances rather than add to just the one selected note.

• Finally, I’m surprised that when cutting and pasting that the default is to not erase and paste over the target, but to keep the target of the paste and overlap the new material. And frankly I’m not sure how to get the former to happen without first erasing the area I want to paste into and then pasting. Again it seems to me that would be the more natural default.

Appreciate any and all suggestions/feedback on any of these issues.

What is it that you’re trying to do with a tied note?
Split it into shorter notes? Get the caret where you want it then hit U (this actually works on any note, not just ones that are displayed as tied).
Add dynamics? Get the caret where you want it then type Shift+D and put your dynamics in.
Something else? Ask!

Pitch editing: select the stem and the whole chord will be selected.

Finally: Yes, if all you have selected is notes. If you’ve started with a selection of a whole bar (or bars) then the paste destination will automatically be overwritten.

Thank you, Leo–you’ve saved me a lot of time! Great tips.

Come to think of it, Playing Techniques, Text, Lyrics etc. can all be added from the caret, including in the middle of a tied note. I’m not sure whether that’s helpful, given I don’t know what you’re trying to do midway through a tied note, but other people may find it useful.

Thanks–it’s more that I was perplexed that once a note is tied it redefines its rhythm (which is of course what a tie does but the behavior of the program surprised me that I could no longer edit the constituent note rhythms within the ties). Using “U” is a great help to that end.

And the clicking the stem is great–not sure how that eluded me, but it will also save me much time.

If you want to see why “redefining the rhythm” of a tied note is a good idea in Dorico, make a long tied note, go into insert mode, and add some short notes in front of it.

Force duration (o) is useful too, if you want some rhythmic pattern to still appear, even after tying.

Also, Shift-alt-right arrow will lengthen a tied note (or non-tied note) by the grid value and Shift-alt-left arrow will shorten the duration.

Not to mention the new Extend to Next Note and Extend to End of Selection functionality, or the fact that if you want
Eighth-barline-half-dotted quarter you can just set the caret an eighth before the barline and type 8 Pitch (he said, assuming a 4/4 meter and certain Notation Options).