See screenshot—when I entered the first half of this bar, Dorico beamed the first three notes (across the 8th rest). When I clicked on the F (third note in the bar) and selected “split beam,” this was the result, and this seems to be Dorico’s default. Beyond the fact that I’ve never seen notation like this (except maybe in Bach’s manuscripts), how do I get Dorico to default to a standard 8th note tail, and not this “broken beam” style?
Thanks,
Peter
When that has happened to me in the past, it was usually caused by selecting the third note in your example and inadvertently applying Split Beam followed by Beam Together. To set the tail back to a normal 8th tail, select the note and apply Reset Beaming or Split Beam or Make Unbeamed.
Thanks! I’ll try that next time it happens.
PL
If Dorico is doing this automatically (even after you Reset Beaming), then you need to look at the Notation Options for Beaming.
The problem arises when the Beam Together command is applied to a single note. Beam Together only works properly when applied to more than one note:
When Beam Together is applied to the indicated note:
You get this:
This has happened to me numerous times and in my opinion, Beam Together should not work at all when applied to a single note and an alert should go up to that effect.
Ah, interesting. You mean, when “beam together” is applied to one note to UNbeam it, correct? That is in face what I’ve been doing that results in that behavior. My workaround has been to unbeam all three notes, then re-beam the ones I want, which fixes it. In Finale, if you click on the highlighted note in your example, you’d get two sets of beamed 8ths. My issue with your fix is that it would turn a one-step process into a two-step process. Why not have the command simply break the beam with the note before it, resulting in two sets of two? Thanks in any case for the reply!
PL
There is a command to “Split Beaming”; and there is “Make UnBeamed”: which both work in slightly different ways.
Selecting the third note and using Split Beaming should give you two groups of two.
I wouldn’t use “Beam Together” to try to split a beam…! 
I wasn’t proposing Beam Together as a “fix” or way to split beams; just observing the behavior when it is misapplied to a single note, which sometimes happens in the thick of battle. As benwiggy points out there are already commands for splitting beams.
On the other hand, it allows some very interesting things, like this brilliant solution by @johnkprice for a very special beaming in Danseuses de Delphes by Debussy!
A few responses:
Using the “Split beams” command doesn’t cause the issue.Thanks—this problem is solved.
PL
@charles_piano Yes! I had forgotten about that one, but knew that someone would point out a good use for this “misuse”.
However, as much as I would desire more flexibility in Dorico-- from a purist’s point of view, it does break with Dorico’s semantic approach, and I for one would prefer a tool that would accomplish the Debussy without a work-around.
I don’t know – “Give a single note a beam” is one interpretation, and there will inevitably be circumstances that want this.
You are right. In which case, the name of the tool might reflect that and/or an alert might go up, since it is unexpected behavior.
It is only unexpected the first time it happens! Thereafter any alert would be redundant.
Yes, the alert would only go up the first time, if the user desired that.
