I cannot open the attached file because it is not a .zip file.
If you close the project and open it again, the problem will be gone.
Strange that Dorico didn’t insert those rests in variation 3 even though the voices were coherent (at the necessary points).
Here are the 3rd and 4th variations with a couple of corrections. I did the 5th, as well, and all the clef changes caused me to make key combinations for them in a macro program, as I couldn’t find a way to automate this within Dorico. It would be handy if we could select a region and apply the clef only to that region. In the case of this variation, it would have saved having to put in about half the clef changes.
I don’t understand Dorico’s beam breaking rules. Let’s say I want to break four 16ths into two groups of two. If I select the 2nd 16th, Dorico breaks between the 2nd and 3rd 16th, which is what I want, but it also breaks between the 1st and 2nd 16th, giving them both flags. If I select the 3rd 16th, it once again breaks between the 2nd and 3rd 16ths but it gives the 3rd and 4th 16ths separate flags. If I select the 2nd and 3rd 16ths, it gives all 4 16ths flags. So no matter what I do, I have to rebeam two of the 16ths. I wonder what the logic is behind this.
Dorico notated the 5th variation quite well by default, including the spacing. I really like the correctly placed cautionary clef between bars 16 and 17. I just had to break some beams, add ornaments that aren’t supported, remove a few unnecessary cautionary accidentals and change a few stem directions (I wonder, for example, why Dorico put the stems down by default in bar 14, beat 2 of the LH). Unfortunately, Dorico still doesn’t flatten beams properly and I had to set the beam settings to force horizontal with all repeated notes, otherwise I would have had to flatten a lot of beams. As it was, I had to give slightly fewer beams a slope.
Goldberg var 3.dorico.zip (237 KB)
Goldberg var 4.dorico.zip (216 KB)
Goldberg var 5.dorico.zip (141 KB)
Hi, didn’t do anything particular for the rests. Just careful about the voices. Yes, becomes a bit strange without the first and second endings. Thanks for fixing the errors. Did it late last night. Jesper
Then select the first two 16ths and choose Edit > Beaming > Beam Together. That should do it in just one step.
It does this because it is following the rules described on page 24 of Gould, namely that we determine the stem direction for the beamed group by having the fewest notes with stems pointing in the “wrong” direction; in the case of that beamed group, 2 x D5 beats 1 x E4. We do follow the extension to that rule such that if the fewer number of notes are much further away from the middle line of the staff, the stem direction for the group should follow that stems instead, but only when the note is further away than E4 (as it happens, D4 is enough to trigger this behaviour in the case of this specific beamed group).
Hello,
Following the topic with interest but do not own DORICO yet. Would it be possible to also include the pdf’s jpg’s etc. of the resulting scores ?
On Wednsday (Nov 30) the free demo will be available. Then you can test it for yourself.
Thanks for point 1. I now know how to break beams like that, although it seems a little counter-intuitive that I can’t use the break beam command.
Thanks also for point 2. I see your (and Dorico’s) logic in putting the stems down. It doesn’t work in this particular context because of the third beat, and perhaps my mental ‘cut-off point’ is a bit different from Dorico’s: that particular figure just looks wrong with its stems down.
For what it’s worth I glommed onto the “beam together” command pretty quickly and easily. I only use the “break beam” command when I want single notes with no beaming. And having the Edit menu available by right-clicking anywhere is really handy.
Indeed - I decided to set up shortcuts, so that Cmd-B would ‘beam together’ and Opt-B would ‘break beam’ - judicious use of the marquee selection and those shortcuts meant that it was a far faster process than I would find myself using in Product A when it came to notating some plainsong modes.
Ok - back to Dorico after a few days off.
Variation 6.
It’s probably me but I am having a real hard time wrapping my head around Dorico.
- Top staff - blue voice - why can’t I force the stem of the quarter note to flip down?
- Same question for bar 4.
- Beams in bars 3, 5, 7 - they still look weird - wasn’t there a way to beam those 16th notes together?
Goldberg Variations - Variation 6.7z (205 KB)
1 and 2. I’m not sure whether this is a bug or an intentional feature, but you probably need to go into engrave mode to flip individual stems in a chain of tied notes.
3. To get 3/8 time beamed with “one beat in the bar” as in the baroque and classical period, enter the time signature in the popover as [3]/8 not 3/8. This is the same method as how to specify the beaming as [3+2]/8 or [2+3]/8 for a 5/8 time signature.
I don’t understand why the beams seem to be OK on one stave and not on the other - did you start fixing them manually, and then think “there must be a better way to do this” and ask the question?
Many thanks Rob – very helpful. The first couple of bars are much better already (though the note spacing in the blue voice, top staff, second voice, is less than ideal).
I’m not 100% sure what I did in the first place, other than starting with the LH since that was the easiest voice with all 16th notes.
(note to self: right mouse click on note, or selected notes, brings up stem and beaming options)
The spacing in bar four seems like a bug to me. I entered your example, but I forced the opening measure to start with voice two by adding a dummy first voice note which I then removed after entering voice two. I thought it might make a difference, and it did until I entered the left hand. If you erase the left hand in the bar, the spacing will be perfect. If you choose landscape paper and add bars, the spacing will be better, but still not quite right. Because the tie is on a B, I wonder if this has something to do with the whole issue of choosing proper stem direction for the middle line. It could also be due to the position of the dot in voice one, since dots on notes lying on spaces have their dots centred on the notehead. …
… actually, by moving the bar one step up or down at a time, one can see it is indeed the dot’s position that creates the odd spacing.
Thanks Claude … you’re right, if you remove the LH notes, the spacing is corrected. Wacky! 
I am assuming this is a bug, surely this can’t be the intention.
A better solution for this example is to reverse the notes of the second in m. 4 with Stem > Swap Voice Order, so the dotted note appears on the right.
I would also wish for the ability to move the dot on the C vertically to the space above. This is possible in Finale but not in Sibelius.
Well … here is Variation 6. Unfinished.
Given that Dorico does not yet have first and second endings, I wrote out everything sequentially, and left text notes for things like segno, first and second ending, bars that can be deleted in due course, and in square brackets below, the bar number in the source text (to keep me from getting confused). So far, so good. But —
Aside from everything mentioned above, the following things are weird:
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when I use the cursor keys in Windows to play back one voice, note by note, not only does it jump from one voice to another (that’s already mentioned above) but also wherever there is an accidental, it first “plays” the accidental, and then the note. That is weird. (note: it does not do this all the time which is even stranger) (note 2: it stop doing this as of 7 pm Sunday night)
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Stem swap voice order does not work in bar 43.
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When entering notes oftentimes I still hear an F# even though I see an F natural (cannot reproduce this).
In general, I feel like I am wrestling Dorico, instead of working with it. I have to change things all the time. Forcing stems up or down. Entering or deleting accidentals. All manually.
A lot of things that should be pretty straightforward, are really difficult. I gave up after bar 47.
Is that just me? 
Goldberg Variations - Variation 6.7z (234 KB)
Peter,
Of course everyone’s experience will be different, and I’m quite certain you are not alone. It took me a while to get a few of my own tricks going as well as getting used to the note entry method, since I worked in Sibelius in a rather unorthodox way when it came to note entry. I did the 6th variations in about 40 minutes without encountering any difficulties, save that I had to mess around with ties at the end of the second section, largely due to the position of the rhythm dots as described above.
My story with Sibelius is that I tried once in early 1999 and couldn’t my head around it. I did sample work and found it very difficult coming from Encore, of all things! Then I tried again in late 1999 and got used to it and eventually became very proficient, although that took a couple of years. Would have I done this variations quicker on Sibelius? Probably, but not significantly. I still need to practice. One of the reasons I did this Bach quickly is because I forced myself to do some professional work with it, so it was sink or swim!
In the end, it may be that doing Goldberg was a bit of difficult project to start with, although I’m sure you learned a lot from it already. But please understand that this is not a contest: all I’m saying is that I’m starting to really get into a groove with it, so I’m certain that you eventually will.
Hang in there!
