Slash position

Dorico
1

See screenshot.

I’m trying to position this slash voice above the staff to show rhythmic hits. But when I do, it forces the upstem voice 1 beams higher.

I haven’t run into this before. Any ideas?


slash position.png
slash position.png419×820 13 KB

2

Have you tried dragging the beams down in the “engrave” mode?

3

I can, but it shouldn’t require manual adjustment, and hasn’t in the past. That’s what I’m seeking to avoid—I prefer the “correct” solution.

Dorico’s handling of multiple voices is one of its strengths. Which is why this is baffling me.

4

I can reproduce this. More info… It’s the middle note that is causing it to happen. Dorico is moving the beam as to not collide with the notehead. Any reason you don’t want the blue notes to have a downstem?

5

After trying to solve your problem, I came up with three solutions:

  1. Edit the beam in “engrave” mode, which is clunky and I agree with you that it shouldn’t be necessary
  2. Force the stem down. It’s technically inaccurate to the conventions of beaming, but doesn’t look too bad
  3. Use a separate, single-line percussion track to mark hits (also shouldn’t be necessary)

I know exactly what you are trying to do, but can’t find a solution. I would recommend changing the title of the thread to “Suggestion” or something to let the devs know that beat indication should be possible. You should also be able to add fantom bar lines to indicate syncopated rhythms.

Let me know if this was helpful.

6

The blue notes are the melody line, which I always prefer to be upstem. I guess no one would die if I flipped them… Still, I was hoping to move the slash voices high enough that they didn’t collide. Thanks!

7

When you have two upstem voices that are beamed, Dorico will lengthen the stems of one voice in order to avoid the beams in the other. This is the designed behaviour, though perhaps it’s not always useful in the context of multiple slash voices with the same stem direction. However, we don’t anticipate any changes in this area in the near future: my personal recommendation would be to consider using opposing stem directions in this case for clarity.