I’m working on a lead sheet in 6/8 and have gotten to this section, where I want m42-43 to show a dotted half note but in diamond notation (i.e. like a slash voice normally looks):
So I select the contents of m42-43 and choose Write > Create Slash Voice. But it looks like this – the dotted half diamond notes are correct, but they’re in a lower voice, and there are extra whole rests that I don’t want:
So I select m42-43 and choose Edit > Notations > Voices > Swap Voice Contents, but it reverts me back to this:
Why isn’t this working? I’ve been going around in circles telling it to create the slash voice, only to have the Swap Voice Contents revert me to not-slash-voice. It also does the same if I click those notes and force them to Change Voice > Up Stem Voice 1.
Just select the two whole rests, and use Edit/Remove Rests. The rests will disappear and the slash voice will move into the correct position. (Alternatively, go back to the end of the previous Up Stem Voice 1 passage and select Ends Voice, which is what Remove Rests is actually doing.) I can’t remember if there’s a factory shortcut for Remove Rests, but if you do a lot of work like this, you’ll certainly want to program a keycommand for it if there’s not.
Thanks so much for the quick reply Fred.
I’m not 100% sure I understand what caused this and why it was so frustrating to figure out, but thanks for your reply as it provided the quick and workable solution!
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The reason for this is that a slash voice counts as another voice (thus the rests) but when you exchange the notes with your regular voice they can’t keep their “slashness”.
(I was already writing this when you replied.)
Thanks Mark. Kind of odd. Why can’t they keep their slashness if in another voice? I know Dorico does allow multiple voices to use slash voices (e.g. you could have one voice showing a rhythm, and another voice showing a melody on the same stave).
I guess – as an intermediate Dorico user – I just have no idea where you learn this stuff. Every time I start a new score in Dorico, I come up against unsolvable issues, and the only way to solve them is to understand a complex behind-the-scenes thought process that doesn’t seem to be highly documented. To put it another way: am I missing something, when I come up against an issue like this, where should I be looking to know how to find the solution? The Dorico reference material was zero help.
Here’s the introduction to slash voices in the Dorico Pro 4 manual.
Inputting notes into slash voices is here; the note at the end gives you a pointer that slash voices are separate voices, and might have an impact when there’s existing music on that staff.
There’s also this page about rests when there are multiple voices on a staff, but I think it could benefit from a bit more info about when Dorico shows implicit bar rests in multiple-voice contexts, which I’ve made a note to add.
Very helpful; thanks Lillie.
