I am trying to write music with two voices on a single line, and I can’t get the voices to behave properly in terms of alignment. Basically, it seems that Dorico doesn’t want to put two stems on a single note head.
I know Dorico will do this as I want if voice 1 has quarters (not dotted quarters). But what I’m asking for is not uncommon (I’m encountering it while learning Dorico by copying a Strauss song).
Here is how to reproduce the situation:
In any single line (rh of piano, for example, treble clef), write voice one as 1/8 - dotted 1/4 (say two C5 notes).
Write voice two as all 1/8 notes, but so that they join voice 1 at the dotted quarter, so G4-C5-G4-C
I’d like the C5 on the second half of beat two to have two stems on one notehead. Dorico puts the eighth note C5 way to the right.
Yes, that’s right. The reason in this example is that the quarter note C is dotted and the eighth note isn’t. If the C’s shared one notehead then the rhythm would be ambiguous. There might be a preference setting that overrides this, but I doubt it. (Sorry I don’t know for sure.)
Mark is right. The dotted quarter and the eighth shouldn’t share a stem because the dot could otherwise be seen as applying to the eighth, as well. It would be better, though, if we could tell Dorico to move the dotted quarters in voice 1 to the right instead of the eighths in voice 2.
Rob! Thanks!! I must have overlooked that (thought I’d gone through all of the prefs).
Yes, I know that there could be rhythmic confusion, but even still, this is a standard option used historically, and is the most elegant looking way to solve this. As I wrote, this is from a standard Strauss song collection, and both Schirmer and Boosey put the downstem eighth on a shared note head with an upstem dotted quarter.
REALLY glad to know Dorico is not making decisions for composers. That’s the whole reason I never learned Sibelius. No matter how awkward and unfriendly Finale was, there is ALWAYS a way to do anything you like. Then, by the time Sibelius matured out of their restrictive attitude, I was completely adept at Finale (having begun with their version 1.0). The hope here is that Dorico, by building from the ground up, will not repeat the mistakes of either program, mistakes in basic conception that were hard-coded into the DNA going back to their versions 1.0. So far, assuming promises are kept, Dorico may really be the ultimate solution. I’m impressed that I’ve come as far as I have as quickly as I have.
You can, case-by-case: select the notes, right-click, Stem > Swap Voice Order.
Again, I don’t know whether there’s a global pref for this. (I hope to get this program soon.)
