Hello. I’m new user (from Finale). Is there a way to hide key signatures and show all accidentals, like in Finale? I know, I can use open key signature or hide this in each instrument, but it’s not the same. Is it possible to do it with one click?
And second thing - in Finale there is a very useful command “rebeam to lyrics”. I can’t find this in Dorico, have to it by selecting and make notes unbeamed. This feature would be nice, developers, think about these features.
Pawel
Welcoem, @japawka
An atonal key signature is exactly “nothing in the key signature”; so that all accidentals are displayed. The way that they get displayed is defined in Notation Options. You can also choose an instrument that doesn’t use key signatures in Setup mode.
Can you explain how it’s “not the same” as setting a key signature and then hiding it?
No, it’s not in Dorico; though it has been requested and it’s on the developer’s list. You’ll have to unbeam/beam things manually.
(There has been much debate over whether beaming to lyrics is a good thing or not. Personally, as a singer, I much prefer to have the rhythm clearly shown by the beaming.)
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“not the same” means not with one click.
Dorico’s default state is “no key signature”. That’s no clicks!
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I found the thread about beaming to lyrics too. 30+ years professionally on stage and those old editions with beaming to lyrics. Terrible to read. If one is not trying to recreate an old edition (for some reason I cannot think of now) then please avoid I re-post the screenshot from. Gould’s “I am behind bars”:
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Perhaps, coming from Finale, you are concerned about what happens when you change a key signature. In Dorico the notes themselves are not affected, and will display the necessary accidentals according to the settings Ben mentioned above. So your “one click” solution is indeed to change to open-key.
I often add a temporary key sig while copying tonal music, when a piece modulates to another key for a passage. This helps with entering the right enharmonics with a midi keyboard, and then I can just delete the temp key sig and all the right accidentals instantly appear (and are properly spaced)!
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OK, I know that notes are not affected by changing key. And there is another thing - when I copy some notes from one key signature to another - notes are also not affected.
I definitely need to get Elaine Gould’s book and I admire her work, but judging from all the excerpts and quotes I read here and (formerly) in the Dorico group on FB, I get the impression that she is not neutral in a number of topics. In fact, these excerpts remind me of Berlioz’ treatise on instrumentation, which is full of personal opinion, as fascinating and enlightening it may still be - especially in R. Strauss’ revision of it.
This is one of the cases where Gould’s opinion seems to be biased, which can be easily seen by the inconsistent distinction between beaming and flagging in the “traditional” example. Why is “rising” beamed together? To me this suggests that she has deliberately chosen one particularly awkward example to denounce traditional beaming as a whole.
The correct traditional beaming would rather look like this:
This way, the syllables of “rising” get their own flags while retaining the visibility of the melisma of “-sing” spanning into the following beat. The same would also apply to syncopations by the way.
Moreover, this example features a particularly complicated lyric rhythm, that today’s engravers wouldn’t even think of notating in traditional beaming. (I do not know what piece this is from, but traditional beaming is generally only accepted in classical repertoire or in hymnals targeting singers that are used to it.)
Plus, in my opinion singers’ parts of choir or ensemble music should always contain some kind of reference to the rest of the arrangement and should never be distributed as single staff like orchestra parts. This is why a vocal score or a piano reduction is preferable, so in good editions, singers will usually have some kind of rhythmic reference that mitigates the drawbacks of traditional beaming.
To be clear: I do not intend to promote traditional beaming in modern editions, I just want to point out that Gould’s depiction of it is incorrect and that one needs to look at it from a different perspective. Especially in rhythmic music, I would always choose modern instrumental beaming.
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I suspect it’s just an unintended error in the example.
We all know that there are as many styles and preferences in notation as there are people, so any authoritative statement is going to annoy people who want the other thing.
Behind Bars is essentially “The Faber Style Guide”. Faber mostly deal in contemporary music, so there’s not much here for Jazzers or Early Music beards.
However, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen lyric beaming in old scores that beams melismas across the beat (e.g. that would beam “-sing” together in this example).
I agree that singers will have (and should have) a score showing accompaniment and the other parts; but when sightreading, you want as much information as possible in one place.
Rhythmic beaming in lyrics only started coming in after WW2, so give it another 100 years and it should be much more accepted.
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I believe that Gould’s book, actually titled Behind Bars, is a survey of the behaviors of other musical criminals like us, not a memoir from her time in prison. 
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She’s the Mama in this house, and if you disagree with her stance on articulations and slur positioning, she will mess you up.
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OK, I understand everything, only I’m not asking which way is the right one, only whether it is possible in a simple way. Sometimes composers wish for a traditional way of engraving vocal parts.
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“Oh, man…you’re gonna make us stay on topic…?!?!” 
Per Ben’s earlier post, it looks like manual editing is your only option.
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A human being cannot be neutral. My neutrality burned to ashes long ago when site-reading numerous traditional Bach editions and Monteverdi from Malipiero edition. It is as if one makes it difficult to read on purpose.
For a modern composer demanding his/her vocal piece to be notated using beaming to lyrics- it is either self-destructive or not caring about performers’ time and effort.
I am not neutral as you can read.
I’m not sure we know the context from this thread. @japawka, are you using this approach to faithfully reproduce older music for some editorial or pedagogical purpose?
P.S. — welcome to the forum!
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I looked the webpage of the edition and saw modern compositions notated with beaming to lyrics. We are indeed different.
I have been privileged to be since 1990 professionally composing and singing on stage. Chewed everything from neumes (st. Gallen, Laon) to very modern, excl. romantic era. That is why I cannot be neutral 
Sometimes I engrave music for composer, who prefers traditional notation
Exactly. Same in this thread about clef change at the start of a system.
(And I have been wanting to mention: In the Behind Bars excerpt in post #5 above, I noticed for the first time her egregiously non-standard hyphenation!)
I’m afraid I don’t understand you, @composerkaumann. Am I missing a web link in one of @japawka’s posts?
In the event “you” was referring to me…
My apparent “neutrality” in asking the OP about his need for the older vocal beaming style was simply to ascertain whether it was in service of something like an historic edition, textbook or other pedagogical text about the history of notation practice, etc.
As it happens, my own forty+ years of making music professionally have led me to the same strong preference for modern beaming practice that most of us share. (In this, then, we are in “violent agreement.” 
)
But here in the forum, I believe the order of operations in our “job” is first to understand what a fellow member wants to accomplish and why before we begin debating. (And I say this as someone perfectly happy to wade into the debate when it’s meaningful and appropriate.)
So it seems to me that we have to be “neutral” when first listening if we actually hope to hear, then afterwards we can respond and challenge appropriately.
Seeing @japawka’s response come in while I typed, we can now assume that there’s at least the possibility he might, as copyist, share the feedback with the composer he works for as food for thought.
“Beam us up, Scotty!” said the eighth notes down on the planet’s surface.