Maintaining Preferred Note Durations in a Choral/Piano Chart

[jackpelham]

Newbie needs help!

I have an open SATB choral score and I’m adding a piano staff (for rehearsal only). (By the way, if there’s an easy way to turn the SATB parts into a piano score, I’d sure love to know about that!)

Anyway, the Soprano and Alto parts (for example), do not always share the same rhythms. As a result, Dorico insists on changing my dotted-quarter-to-eight pattern into a quarter tied to two eights. (See the screen shot and the red rectangles.) I’ve read several discussions about locking note durations, and I don’t think that any of that works when inputting multiple notes per staff, as in a piano score.

This default behavior is maddening, and it ruins the elegance of typical notation. I would think that Dorico would have a setting for “do what I told you, and don’t change it around.”

Am I missing something? Here’s my screen shot.

[dan_kreider]

For notes with differing rhythms, you would need to enter the alto part as Downstem Voice 1. While in note input, press Shift-V to create a new downstem voice. Use V to toggle between existing voices.

But there is indeed an automatic way. Use Paste Special—Reduce.

[benwiggy]

Yes, as Dan says, Dorico will do this effortlessly if you select the two parts, Copy, then Paste > Reduce into the piano right hand.

Dorico will put the Alto part into a 2nd voice, which will allow different rhythms from the first voice.