Force Duration on existing notes

My quickest method for Forcing a tied note into one duration is:

  1. Double click on the note chain to invoke the Note Entry caret.

This will automatically select the correct overall duration in the note panel.

  1. Press O to turn on Force Duration.

  2. Play the note.

Nice!

Thank you, this works! I’m new to Dorico and find it to be quite clear and the Shortcuts are not that much different from Sibelius. But still, for a simple thing like changing two tied quavers into a single quarter note I need o+56. It would be easier and faster to just click o or 6 to get the note written as a quarter (I didn’t find a setting for this in the Notation Options).

Welcome to the forum, Zekaa. Indeed you’re correct that it would be easier and faster to just click o or 6. Unfortunately there are plenty of situations where people want, for instance, a 16th tied to a dotted 8th or a dotted 8th tied to a 16th (or a 32nd tied a double dotted 8th). “Easy and fast” covers some use cases, but not all.

There are also situations where you’d use “6” on a selection of notes that included 8ths and halves, with the intention of turning them all into quarters. It may or may not be appropriate, depending on the position in the bar, syncopation and meter, for Dorico to actually turn them into quarters rather than tied eighths.

I could probably come up with more reasons that Force Duration can’t be assumed when a user types “6”, but hopefully these examples will suffice for now.

Thank you for your reply, pianoleo! Your example below the picture convinces me, but I still think, that then, you should be able to select “Notate as a single note” in the Notation Options when a quarter begins on the second quaver of a 4/4-meter followed by a rest (I wasn’t able to find any official convention demanding two tied quavers in that case in Elaine Gould).

The second example in your picture raises the (tedious) question why I have to think about forcing these durations in the writing process since it might be possible that I indeed want it written that way when I type it in like this. I’m sorry if this is against the whole philosophy of always keeping the score correct …

I just wanted to thank pianoleo for this suggestion. I made the ‘let’s think about force duration later’ mistake and well, I’ve just hit ‘o 5 6’ about a hundred times and I’m done :slight_smile:

if you did it a hundred times there’s probably a notation option that would’ve achieved what you needed.

Two matters:

1) Speaking of Notation Options, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make the rhythm in m.2, attached, the default:


Regardless of whether or not this is “correct,” the manuscripts I edit almost invariably use quarter notes in this position. This is the only situation I’ve found, day-to-day, where Force Duration is truly necessary. Unfortunately it is very common, and speaking for myself, I would say that the second rhythm is equally clear, if not more so. Is there something I’m missing here, or is it impossible without FD?

2) I would LOVE to see the option to have mid-measure system breaks automatically act as barlines do, with regard to tied durations and rest durations. This is especially helpful in the case of recitatives, where I find it less important to maintain the integrity of a measure than to achieve well-proportioned spacing, and to avoid orphaning small portions of a character’s text over system breaks. At present this requires either fussy Force Duration work, or the use of a dotted barline, which I prefer to reserve for other situations, and which also requires fussing with bar numbers. (The ability to put a bar number in brackets, as is automatic with mid-measure system breaks, would also be helpful.)

Try [2+2]/4 for Time Sigature. Shift-M

Jesper

Well, I had thought as much. I had asked around in a different thread. It seems I’m not the only user of this forum who unfortunately finds few note grouping options really useful for 6/4. I had some specific requirements regarding 1) group beaming, 2) rest engraving and 3) note grouping: and it turned out that options which gave me good results regarding 1) and 2) necessitated some manual intervention regarding 3). But I’m still learning of course, so I probably got confused. I will revisit my score with a fresh mind soon.

My answer was of course as general as it could be not knowing your exact issues.
I know that there are several things in Note-Grouping lacking.
I just also find the need to often enough remind myself about them :wink: