When attempting to set “Force Stems down” in the property panel, Dorico fights me on it and refuses to put the stems down for certain notes (blue notes, tied to the eighths). It does not listen to “flip stems” hotkey, and it doesn’t matter which direction I set the tie.
Why? “Force stems” should ACTUALLY force them, right!?
You must go to engrave mode to flip the stems of subsequent tied notes.
This has been brought up many times on the forum, going back all the way to 2017.
Thanks.
The more important question is when would it ever be desirable to have subsequent tied notes within the same melodic line NOT share a stem direction? I feel like it would actually make more sense to need to menu dive to force the opposite (or what this program considers the default for some reason).
It has been brought up many times, ahhhhhh because it doesn’t make any sense.
Feature request: change “Force Stem Direction” in the Write Mode Parameters to say “Force Stem Direction (Sometimes), But Please See Engrave Mode To Actually Accomplish Anything”
I understand the frustration, please rest assured the team is aware of the issue.
Brand new to Dorico and it is daunting. Selecting stem direction via the Change Voices path does nothing in write or engrave mode. Few things seem intuitive, and nothing seems easy (or reliable). I will sorely miss FINALE when it dies.
Welcome to the forum, MNB_Jr50
The nominal stem directions are only relevant when there are multiple voices on a staff, as in instances where there’s only a single visible voice the stem direction will default up for pitches below the middle staff line and down for pitches above the middle staff line. If you want to manually flip stems, you can do it by selecting the relevant note(s) and typing F (for flip).
Have patience and do ask questions - I’m sure your first few days in Finale were daunting and felt unintuitive, and the chances are that when you started working with Finale you didn’t have prior expectations of how a notation program ought to work (though I may well be wrong, here).
Thank you pianoleo. I’m trying to get a handle on this before it becomes an emergency. Lots with which to grapple. I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot from The Barbershop community in coming weeks.
Next up is how to combine four clefs into two and still have four channels in the mixer. We’ll get there. Thanks again.
~Norm
Take a look at condensing for that - I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
No fix on this yet, I assume, correct?