I am still a beginner and have a few basic questions I couldn’t find answers for. I’m using Dorico Pro 6.2.20 on a new Mac.
I have condensed score and inserted bars at the start of the project. I’m in Galley view, write mode. I cannot select flute 1, oboe 1, clarinet 1, bassoon 1 to enter notes. I read other threads and found that this could be because I was in condensed mode (I am) but on page view (I am on Galley view). This happens only after I insert empty bars at the start of the score. Does anything look out of wack?
Something that really drives me crazy is how you delete bars. In any other software, you select an object, hit delete, it’s gone. I get using the bar popup isn’t that bad, but it is temperamental and just seems unnecessary cumbersome. If I want to delete a large section of a large piece, I can’t just select the bars I want removed and hit delete, I have to know how many bars there are that need to be deleted before the section I don’t want deleted? I’ve found sometimes it deletes bars I unintended or is easy to screw up like I might not have selected the entire bar so it removed part of a good bar type of issues. Any better ways to delete bars?
I haven’t yet gotten to parts but am starting to think about them. Are they pretty much ready to go out of the box or are there practical issues you need to think through? I’m just trying to figure out how much time I need to set aside for parts given it will be my first time to produce them in Dorico.
In Galley View the score is not condensed and you should be able to select a staff (or multiple consecutive staves) to enter music with SHIFT N, RETURN or double-click.
To delete bars select something in a bar and press SHIFT B- (minus) and then the number of bars you want to delete. And you can delete empty bars at the end of a piece with SHIFT Btrim
The parts are pretty much ready to go out of the box but I recommend to try to make some changes in Layout Mode. For example the page margins are very generous. You can also modify the default Page Templates to add more information like the arranger or a subtitle. In any case find a personal “house style” and save projects as project templates to be able to reuse them.
No, you cannot. That’s because that “shortcut” has already been programmed to delete the notes (the contents) from the measures rather than to delete the measures.
It looks like you have used Remove Rests in those staves. Find the first not or rest that actually appears in each of those staves. Select it, open the bottom Properties panel, and toggle off the Starts Voice property.
No, but you can select the bars you want removed and do Edit > Delete Bars.
By the way, if you wanted to, you could go to Preferences > Key Commands and remap the Delete key from Edit > Delete to Edit > Delete Bars. Then you could use the Delete key for bars and the Backspace key for everything else.
Aaron, can’t we delete the entire bar - notes and all - from the system track? I know many have turned it off but I’m still new enough to think I’m missing something if it’s not there!
– Jim
Yes, I was asking about streamlining my process. I have been using Dorico for maybe 3 months now and still screw up deleting bars. It’s not an easy transition for those of us with 20+ years from Finale/Sibelius but the community has been very, very helpful. Thanks!
Can you give an example of the circumstances in which you need to delete bars? Normally, in Dorico, bars are just “a consequence” of the time signature, and you can move (or delete) the music regardless of bars.
I very rarely have to delete bars (other than at the end of a Flow, where I use “Trim Flow” in the Write menu.)
In a piece I wrote, the client has feedback so I try a different approach. That impacts only a section and the changed section is shorter than the original. The other cues are fine as is so it’s the middle that I need to remove a few bars. Other times, I might use a score for the final work but a different score for a working sketch pad where I refine and mold it. Since the timings are somewhat locked, I have bars in the final score to keep the timing intact. I don’t fully know the tempo or time signatures till I work that all out in the sketch pad score. Ultimately, I will transfer the flushed out sketch and might have extra bars in the hole I put in the score. There are lots of examples but you get the idea. Sometimes I’ll have an A, B, C version of the same cue but with slight differences and eventually decide on one. Maybe A, B, C are all in the full sore and ultimately I need to get rid of version A, and C because I landed on B.
