Question about note durations and irregular time signatures

Dorico
1

Hi everyone,
I am curious if there’s an efficient way to enter full-bar note durations in 5/4 time, or any other non-duple or -triple meters.

I entered a 4-beat note, dotted half tied to quarter, and wanted to turn the quarter into a half for a total of 5 beats. I couldn’t figure out how to do it directly. I should have entered a dotted half, then a half, then tied them. I got there by learning about the scissors.

Can you select part of a tied note? There are many times when I want to fiddle with the duration by changing the second part of a tie. There’s a lot of mental calculation involved when there are several parts to a tie, and you want to make it an eighth note longer. Often, it doesn’t seem possible from the note duration palette.

2

Don’t do that! Instead, just increase the duration of the selected note by pressing alt-shift-right! Let Dorico sort out the appearance.

And you can change your rhythmic grid to suit your needs.

It’s a totally different way of thinking about durations!

3

Wow. I had no idea. I have been so frustrated by tied notes! Thanks.

4

Also,

  • Ctrl-Alt-Shift-left/right arrow doubles or halves the note duration.
  • Alt-L/R moves it horizontally through the score, according to the rhythmic grid you have set
  • You can change the rhythmic grid via Alt-[ and Alt-]

Plus there are multiple ways to move the notes up and down:

  • Alt-up/down moves the selected notes diatonically
  • Ctrl-Alt-up/down moves the notes chromatically
  • Alt-Shift-up/down transposes the notes to the next octave (I have remapped this to the + and - keys on the right keypad)

Basically, notes are non-destructive. Easy to manipulate the note you just created, or any group of notes you select!

5

Excellent tips from Dan. Also, for irregular time signatures, in the shift-M popover (M for meter) you can use notations like

[2+3]/4 (looks like 5/4 when you hit enter)
[3+2+2]/8 (looks like 7/8 when you hit enter)

etc., to specify how Dorico should tie groups of notes.

6

Good tips. Thanks!