Half notes appear as 2 quarter notes tied

Measure 4, 2nd beat should be a half note, not 2 quarter notes tied together. How do I make it a half note? I noticed this happens when the half note is after the two eighth notes.

Watching the Dawn.dorico (417.1 KB)

You can either change beaming in engraving options or use force duration if you really want a halfnote.

Modern engraving theory says that two tied quarters is correct.

Should you want to change it, this is the relevant setting:

Hello to all,

I’m running into the same issue, but turning on the “notate as a single notes” function is having no effect on my score… Is it a matter that this specific rhythm does not apply?

Thanks as always for any guidance.

Regards,
Alex


No you are not. Look carefully at the definitions. All relate to notes starting on a beat. Your tied quavers all start on an off beat.

If you really want crotchet (which I would not advise) you will have to use force duration.

I agree, a quarter note here would really obfuscate the rhythm.

You can retrofit these by selecting the tied notes, then pressing O, 5, 6.

Thank you to you both. I was hoping this could be done without doing it manually. I’m aware it does obfuscate the rhythm, members of this forum seem very keen on following convention. In vocal music it’s cleaner to have one note per syllable, so I’m going for this approach.

Cheers.

That’s not a binding convention, and especially not if it presents a rhythm that is difficult to follow. Sorry, quarter notes here are not a good idea. But that’s not the point of the post, so I’ll desist.

Yes, I’m aware, but this is my choice for this project. This is just a fun tune for myself and a few friends, and we all know this tune aurally quite well, this is just to make our practice a bit more streamlined. Thanks again for your help.

Select the tied note, and press O, 5, 6. (Make sure Insert mode is off.)

Oh, and while we’re on conventions, “Help - less - ly” is more intelligible. :grin:

Nothing would stop you entering a time signature of [3+2+3]/8 (with the brackets) for the unconventional measures (and hiding it) but you would still have either to change the time signature of the “Harlequin” measures or use Forced Duration there.

A good point as well! Seems the straight answer is that I’d need to do most of the work manually, so I may end up just letting Dorico do its thing. I thought maybe there was some kind of way to “simplify at all costs” kind of toggle.

To be clear, I’m not looking for this thread to be a debate on notation conventions and ethics haha! I was just confused that turning on every toggle didn’t seem to have the effect I was looking for. As Janus said, I hadn’t looked carefully enough at the definitions.

Thanks as always to this great community for your help. We learn more every day!
Alex