I particularly appreciate the way Dorico allows me to retrospectively apply a dotted rhythm to a selected group of notes with a single press of the full-stop key. It would be nice to have a similar facility to speed up the input of Scottish snaps (Lombard rhythms?) . It would seem that the comma key could be a good choice for this function as it shares a key with the “less-than” (<) symbol .
The “>” and “<” keys are used in ABC Notation for just this purpose.
As a relative newcomer to Dorico I am assuming that such a feature is not already hidden in there somewhere!
Out of curiosity I played around and found a few ways to accomplish this. One method:
- Select the offbeat notes (filtering by rhythm is a long-standing request)
- Set the rhythmic grid to half the value
- Activate chord mode (Q)
- Move the notes back with Alt← and dot them
- Fix the overlapping notes with Write > Edit Duration > Shorten to Next Note
Another:
- Select the offbeat notes
- Activate insert mode (I)
- Dot the selected notes
- Ctrl/Command-click on each bar to invert the selection
- Set the on-beat notes to the right length directly
A third idea:
- Move the whole passage later by the note value so it stars on the offbeat
- Select the notes that are now on the beats and dot them
- Move everything back again to start on the right beat
Quicker still is:
- Select the second note of the passage through to the last note.
- Hit . (full stop/period)
- Set rhythmic grid to 16ths (or whatever your short notes are).
- Alt-Left.
(Yes, this is more steps than Mark’s last option but the first step is much quicker than Mark’s second step.)
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