Immigrating to Dorico from Finale. One thing I’ve occasionally used in Finale, via a plug-in, is the ability to split a series of notes into half values with rests separating them. For example, taking a run of 16th notes and changing them to 32nd notes each separated by 32nd-note rests:
This avoids having to insert rests and also change the note durations by 50%. Any straightforward way to do this in Dorico without the more laborious way? Thanks.
This should be quite simple: select the region and simply press 3 (for 32nd notes). The rest should be automatic!
… and make sure you don’t have Insert Mode active, otherwise everything will collapse horizontally.
Thanks! That would not have occurred to me, but worked perfectly.
Just to see what would happen if I selected those 16th and hit an 8th note for duration, the result was not as expected. Instead of changing all of them to 8ths and having half of them automatically moved to the next 4/4 measure, it expanded every other note as an 8th and the intervening notes were deleted. If I hit a whole note, then the first note became a whole note and everything else was deleted.
So how would I change all of them to a longer duration? I know there’s likely a keystroke to do that but am not seeing any obvious way to make that happen. Same with adding measures to the end-how does one do that (not seeing it in the manual). Thanks.
That’s when you need Insert mode, to make more room for each one.
I generally use the Bars popover for this. Shift B to bring up the popover, and just type a number. I tend to exaggerate what I need, and then use Shift B and type “trim” to remove all the empty bars at the end.
Otherwise, Insert Bars is in the Bar sidepanel.
You need to explore the various Insert Modes. At its simplest, with insert mode (I) on, every selected note changes length and shuffles everything later in the timeline.
(One caveat: it does not change the duration of a tuplet…)
Yes that worked. Just not intuitive (yet) to use Insert to change durations. Thanks.
There are some really powerful tricks using Insert, or not:
With Insert OFF, take a bunch of equal notes, and press period. Bingo: now you’e got dotted notes.
Turn on Insert, select them, and press the original note duration. Now they’re equal again!
AND its been suggested that there be a giant flashing sign anytime insert mode is active. Inadvertently engaging insert mode while randomly editing throughout your score can be disastrous.
Even easier, as I just tried: keep insert on both times and you will get the same results. I’ll definitely keep this in mind.
No: with Insert mode on, a group of eighth notes becomes all dotted notes:
With Insert OFF, you get this:
Got it. I didn’t look as closely as I should. Again, not intuitive coming from Finale so I’ll definitely think of Insert as the main tool to change duration equally for a group of notes. The Write:Change Duration option accomplishes what I found the first time without invoking the menubar. It doesn’t shift notes to the right. I was looking for something analogous to Finale’s Change Duration with the Rebar Music option checked. Thanks. One good thing I’m finding: Insert allows me to copy whole or partial measures and insert it before a target measure, like cmd-I in Finale. That’s helpful.
Best regards,
David
