Hi, you know, with Dorico how do you separate the syllables of the song line, like this bar made with another notation program?
I have tried looking in the manual but there is no indication about it.
Thanks…
As you enter lyrics using the popover, simply press the hyphen key.
Thanks, but I was wondering how to separate the notes, not the text.
Is there a feature that automatically splits notes?
Ah. Select the eighth notes, right click, Beaming—Make Unbeamed.
If you’re doing this often, you can assign a key command to it.
Could you take a picture of me, please?
Because I have Dorico in Italian and not in English …
Oh thank you so much …
It’s worth saying that unless you are deliberately recreating the look of an antique score, singers usually expect/prefer beaming to the rhythm.
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Hmm… I guess this is not universal 
I’ve never been working on a “beamed” score (professional singer here, for 20 years), and my fellow singer clients would expect me to keep on using the syllabic beaming. I know it’s a feature engravers push us to use, but… Well, things may differ in other countries.
It’s been pretty standard since the mid-20th century, at least. For modern music with ‘rhythmic interest’, it’s imperative.
The question, as ever, is ‘what information does the notation convey?’.
Beaming to syllable was used as the prime means of identify where to put the words when text was printed or written haphazardly. Now that we can rely on the syllables being under the correct notes, beaming to syllables is redundant, and the rhythmic information is lost.
Gould says (p. 435: 'beaming to beats is now used in vocal music, together with syllabic slurs.)
As something of a professional singer myself, I definitely prefer beam-to-beat, and I think that’s the opinion of most of my colleagues. This has certainly been raised on this forum before, and I didn’t think it was controversial!
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Absolutely. Me too. I royally despise syllabic beaming. It can make rhythms terribly difficult to read. On the other hand, I never have to guess with a traditionally beamed rhythm, and slurs make it very easy to see the proper syllabic groupings. In fact, I’ve re-created various historic editions specifically to avoid giving syllabic beaming to my singers as it would complicate rehearsal. I wonder if there is a continental divide on this? I’m in the USA. I’ve seen both, but I refuse to use syllabic in my own editions.
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In Germany I mostly see and use syllabic beaming, at least in publications of church music, but I’d need to check to see if there’s a trend.
There is a place for both styles, but if rhythms are even slightly unusual (when compared to the natural rhythm of the words when spoken) or complicated, then the modern (instrumental) beaming is preferable.
For modern music I would always use the modern style. It is easier to apprehend rhythm and see beats when they are beamed, especially when the lyrics often distort the natural spacing of the notes.
In baroque vocal music, using slurs to show the melisma can mislead the reader, as they imply a legato that is not present in the original notation, and was likely not intended by the composer. This (and Urtext generally) is the only context where I would be entirely comfortable using syllabic beaming.
Singers working today will of course see syllabic beaming often, because older editions are still commonplace, especially in opera. But that’s not really an argument for continuing to use it.
J
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I completely agree with preferring rhythmic beaming as opposed to lyric syllable beaming and, like Romanos, I refuse to use anything but rhythmic beaming in my editions. Even in Baroque music, the only place I’d refrain from using slurs is during long melismas, as the meaning is obvious and it would only create unnecessary clutter. I would even refrain from using lyrics syllable beaming in standard recitatives. I’ve often written rhythmic patterns into the music of the literally hundreds of recitatives I’ve played, as in many cases it’s extremely difficult to tell what the note values are at a glance, especially if there are long syllables on short notes, which severely distort the proportional spacing. I would even go as far as to say that the traditional way of beaming is at least partially responsible for the way many singers perform recitatives, i.e. as fast as possible and without any regard to rhythm. Sure, recitatives should be ‘free’ but the composers did write certain rhythms for a reason. The only situation in which I would consider beaming to lyric syllables is in unmeasured music.
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‘unless you are deliberately recreating the look of an antique score, singers usually expect/prefer beaming to the rhythm’ (@benwiggy)
There are two points here. (1) ‘Antique’ is a bit of a loaded term. The reality is that if you want to reproduce any operatic score or classical song published before about 1990, or are working from the composer’s manuscript, you need to be able to break the beams at each syllable. There’s a reason why Finale had ‘Rebeam to Lyrics’ from the start. I had never seen an operatic aria without broken beams until I saw a nasty compilation published in 1992 by Schirmer. (2) Given that almost every opera score and song ever published is beamed in this way, I don’t think you can say that singers ‘expect’ ‘beaming to the rhythm’.
‘I’ve never been working on a “beamed” score (professional singer here, for 20 years), and my fellow singer clients would expect me to keep on using the syllabic beaming. I know it’s a feature engravers push us to use, but… Well, things may differ in other countries.’ (@MarcLarcher)
It seems that most of the ‘singers’ posting here (Marc excepted) have only ever sung in choirs and not on stage or in the recital hall. In the UK, beaming to the beats rather than syllables in choral music has been used for quite a long time (by Oxford University Press in particular) but it’s not a universal standard and wasn’t used for songs or opera until very recently.
‘It’s been pretty standard since the mid-20th century, at least’ (@benwiggy)
This has been said before but nothing I’ve ever seen supports this statement.
'The question, as ever, is ‘what information does the notation convey?’. (@benwiggy)
‘Singers working today will of course see syllabic beaming often, because older editions are still commonplace, especially in opera. But that’s not really an argument for continuing to use it’. (@JHughes)
‘I would even go as far as to say that the traditional way of beaming is at least partially responsible for the way many singers perform recitatives, i.e. as fast as possible and without any regard to rhythm.’ (@Vaughan_Schlepp)
This is where it becomes interesting. I would argue (and from experience), that given a passage for solo voice beamed in two different ways, one sings them differently. The implications seem to me very significant and I think it’s a mistake to dismiss this as nothing more than a choice of style. Given the choice, I generally beam the music as the composer had done or expected but the beauty of being able to typeset music on a computer is that one can experiment.
Does anyone know if any research has been done on this subject?
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Differently how?
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Not just in Baroque music, but throughout the nineteenth century and in the twentieth-century work of composers writing with traditional vocal values in mind, slurs have a special meaning in vocal parts: to indicate where a portamento is especially desirable. (The “Liber scriptus” in the Verdi Requiem is one prominent example, but there are many.) This information would be obscured if the music were re-edited to use slurs for other purposes.
To put it most simply, in one case one perhaps gives precedence to the form of the music, in the other, to the words, The changes are subtle but the performance is transformed.
Not unlike @Vaughan_Schlepp, the first thing I’d do with a recitative is at least mark some of the beats but I can’t imagine ever wanting it written out with everything beamed. It would be so hard to break away from the rhythms (though I agree with him that less intelligent singers ignore them too much).
The effects in very simple choral music are perhaps less dramatic but when I look at something like A Ceremony of Carols (which you must know well), it’s transformed as soon as I try to imagine it not being beamed to the lyrics. Imagine if ‘little’ and ‘few days’ old were beamed at the beginning of ‘This little babe’ or how stiff ‘That yongë child’ might become.
There’s a dramatic contrast between Faber’s Britten scores and those of Thomas Adès yet there’s nothing difficult to read in the former.
I can’t imagine Tristan’s Act III monologues being beamed as if they’re dance music.
I would suggest that beams themselves can imply shaping that wouldn’t otherwise have been felt. It’s really not a a trivial matter.
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At a certain point this begins to sound like a spitting contest. I’m in favor of notation software providing the means for flexibility where multiple standards exist.
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That’s the point. Dorico doesn’t do this at the moment (assuming one doesn’t think beaming to lyrics should be done manually) but some people (with limited needs or limited insight) are arguing that it’s not necessary.
I imagine the handling of lyrics will get some attention in the next major version.
I don’t know what this means.