I have to juxtapose two lengthy passages that have different tempos, preserving each passage’s original playback speed. Notation should match playback after merging. Is there any way to do this without manually editing the duration and starting position of every note, rest, and notational element in at least one of the passages?
An analogous issue would arise when importing music INTO an existing composition that has a different tempo than the import source.
I’ve been told that there is a “scale duration” function in Dorico Pro 6 (Windows) that somehow does this, but if anything like that exists, I can’t find it.
To be clear, here’s a simplified example:
- passage #1: 4 measures at q=100
- passage #2: 8 measures at q=200
If I choose to modify only the first passage, I would want to double the duration and adjust the starting position of almost every item in those four measures, slowing down those 4 measures to fill 8.
Hi @cundare, if I understand your needs correctly (but without an example score I am only interpreting your words) you need:
Edit Durations (Double/Half Note Value) (to be found under menu Write), combined with Insert Mode (probably in Global scope) to automatically move the resulting music appropriately.
If you have tuplets, the Insert Mode will give some issues (that can be resolved manually: just rewrite the tuplets with the new values). Also multiple voices in the same staff can give issues.
Follow the mentioned functionalities links to the Manual, and exercise a little, to see how they can work together (especially Insert Mode needs some time to be used fluently).
Or, as ever: post an example Dorico file that you would need to adapt, and someone can give specific advices on how to proceed.
.It seems as though the advice I was given had me going in circles b/c it directed me to find non-existent menu selections in all the wrong dialogs – not “Edit Durations” in the Write drop-down.
I’ll follow up tomorrow and let you know how I make out.
Unfortunately, nothing in that sub-menu did the trick. I can halve or double the duration of a selection of notes, but don’t see a way to choose other ratios.
But the bigger issue is that only the duration of notes are changed. The notes are left in their previous positions and rests are inserted.
If that’s unclear, here’s an example:
I start with eight quarter notes filling two measures of 4/4, one note per beat. I want to compress them down to 8 eighth notes that fill one measure of 4/4.
The closest that any of the Edit Duration functions comes is to convert each quarter to an eighth, leaving the shortened notes at their original positions – that is, producetwo measures of eighth notes, each separated by an eighth rest. Obviously, this wouldn’t help with my goal of reconciling two blocks of content that have different tempos so that, when played together, each plays at its original playback speed.
To do this with the Edit Duration functions I see, I’d also need a “compress”-type function that would shift the notes in time, squeezing out the rests that were created by Edit Duration. In my example, that would mean compressing the 8 shortened eighth notes into a single measure of 4/4.
Using the simplified example in the original post with one passage containing 4 measures at q=100 and the other passage containing 8 measures at q=200, I think this is what the OP means by reconciling the tempos:
?? Not sure what the confusion is. I thought my simplified examples were pretty clear.
We may have done this topic to death, though. I think I’ve confirmed that: i) when the two tempos are in a multiple of a 2:1 ratio, Dorico can do what I need with just a few clicks; ii) when the two tempos are not in that ratio, it’s beyond Dorico’s capabilities
John, here’s one last super-simplified example: Consider a tune played by an acoustic jazz ensemble. The trumpet and bass parts obviously sync together during the performance. During PLAYBACK.
In this example, the two parts, possibly derived from different transcriptions, are notated at different tempos. E.g., piece #1 notate the trumpet part as at q=60; while another transcriber might have notated the bass line at q=120.
A trumpet note that sounds for 1 second would thus be notated as a quarter note. But a bass note that sounds for 1 second would be notated as a half note.
If I simply imported those two lines as distinct parts into the same measure – both parts sharing a single tempo – one would PLAY at twice the speed of the other.
One solution would be to halve or double the duration of each note in one of the parts so that all eighth notes are sustained for the same duration during playback.
I’m thus trying to alter the duration of each element in one part so that the two parts are “reconciled” with each other and with the actual performance.
Hope this helps.
And yes, reconciling tempos of 50 and 216 is a friggin nightmare. But that’s what I was handed. Tbh, it’s not impossible, as I’ve already manually synced up a few measures and the result is surprisingly listenable. The parts are large, however, and I can’t imagine going through this process manually for dozens of measures and multiple players.
Perhaps you could export the 50 BPM music as a midi file, open that in a DAW, lock the midi in place, change the tempo to 216 BPM, export as midi and import to dorico? That way you could get an approximation of the 50 BPM music in 216 BPM at least, perhaps quantised to 16th notes?
Assuming the goal of the project is to create an audio file, here is a way to enter the music for simultaneous tempos of q=50 and q=216. Click on the image to enlarge it.
The actual hidden tempo is q=337.5 and the global time signature is 1/32. The upper staff has an independent time signature in the first bar of 2/4,13.5 and a hidden independent time signature of [54+54]/32 in the second bar. Every bar in the upper staff has a hidden 16:108y tuplet. The lower staff has an independent time signature in the first bar of 2/4,3.125 and a hidden independent time signature of 25/32 in the second bar. Every bar in the lower staff has a hidden 16:25y tuplet. The barlines will coincide every 25 bars in the upper staff and 108 bars in the lower staff.
You can now enter the music without changing the original durations of the notes. Enter the music in the upper staff to be played at an effective tempo of q=50 and enter the music in the lower staff to be played at an effective tempo of q=216.
The ratios were determined with the aid of a calculator and a fair amount of trial and error.
I initially set the actual tempo to q=60. Then I moved the playhead to the first coincident barline between the staves and observed that the elapsed time in the transport was 00:05:37.500, or 337.5 seconds. Knowing that the elapsed time at this barline should be 60 seconds, I changed the actual tempo to q=337.5.
I spent several hours on this when I should have been sleeping. I had to use Edit > Remove Rests on myself.
I think there is a (slightly) easier way than @johnkprice’s.
Since tuplets can span multiple bars, all you need do is create a 216:60q tuplet in the lower part and repeat as needed!
(EDIT: For smaller amounts of musical time use similar ratios eg 54:15e)
My head is spinning. Really, guys, I’m impressed. “Ingenious” is right. (& John’s “remove rest” pun had me chuckling!)
Anyway, I now know what I’ll be doing on Christmas Day – experimenting with each one of these suggestions. If anyone has more of these genius ideas, feel free to post ‘em here before then.
I’ll let you know how things turn out.
PS – I didn’t mention the fact that two of the parts I’m trying to “reconcile” are also in different meters: 11/8 and 19/16! Like I said, my examples were “simplified”!
Well, the Edit Duration + Insert Mode seems to be the most helpful, even if it does raise the usual Insert Mode gotchas. In particular, the process has to be performed in an isolated part of the score, such as the final bars of a flow. Otherwise, changing the duration of a player’s passage knocks all subsequent content for that player out of sync with the rest of the score. That’s the biggest reason I rarely touch Insert mode – just forget to disable it for even a few minutes and you have a mess to clean up.
The tuplet/ratio method is pretty clever, and does work. The arithmetic really isn’t impossible if you understand HS-math concepts like Least Common Multiplier. The methods outlined here, though, don’t quite work within the context of this particular piece and, as John mentioned, getting everything right takes work. But the general methodology is solid – and solidly impressive. Even with my BS in Math & Physics, that would never have occurred to me. JKP, you’re a bit of a genius.
Unfortunately, though, I still don’t see a way to fully automate the process of inserting two piecees of music into the same score when one has tempo q=216 in 19/8, and the other q=50 in 11/8. Maybe what I’m being asked to do here is simply not possible with current tools.
Even if that turns out to be true, however, this has so far been a pretty interesting thread.
The actual hidden tempo is q=337.5 and the global time signature is 1/128. The upper staff has an independent time signature in the first bar of 11/8,74.25 and a hidden independent time signature of [108+108+81]/32 in the second bar. Every bar in the upper staff has a hidden 44:297y tuplet. The lower staff has an independent time signature in the first bar of [4+4+4+4+3]/8,29.6875 and a hidden independent time signature of [100+100+100+100+75]/128 in the second bar. Every bar in the lower staff has a hidden tuplet containing 304 128th notes in the time of 475.
You can now enter the music without changing the original durations of the notes. Enter the music in the upper staff to be played at an effective tempo of q=50 and enter the music in the lower staff to be played at an effective tempo of q=216.
Thanks so much for pointing out the Mode Stop Position function. Don’t know how I’ve missed that for so long, but I think it’ll allow me to finally start using Insert Mode.
