My Dorico learning journey continues. I need some help here, because I’m not grasping the difference between linked and grouped dynamics, how Dorico decides to automatically link or group, and what the implications are when I try to go through my score to align the dynamics, only to be thwarted by a bunch of automatically linked or grouped ones that resist my efforts until I go back into write mode and unlink and/or ungroup them, after which they will cooperate with my alignment campaign. Am I then losing something by not having them linked or grouped anymore? If so, what?
Sorry if this is a bit ranty, but I’m getting quite frustrated. I’m sure there is rhyme and reason to it, but at the moment it is a mystery to me.
Can anyone help me understand this better? Sorry if I haven’t read the manual properly, but I did try.
Groups: dynamics in one part
Links: dynamics at the same place across different instruments
Groups occur if you enter multiple dynamics in the popover (or manually create them using the edit menu)
Links are created when you copy/paste dynamics between parts.
You can see if dynamics are grouped/linked if you select one and another goes blue!
If you want to get rid of all groups and links: Select All, filter for Dynamics, edit->dynamics->ungroup, edit->dynamics-> unlink.
I find links useful when changing overall dynamic levels. Just change one and they all change.
I find groups less useful, until I get the stage I want align dynamics.
If you find dynamics linked across staves more of a hindrance than a help, you can prevent Dorico from linking them by default by switching off Link dynamics and slurs to existing items when pasting at the bottom of the Note Input and Editing page of Preferences.