The dynamics are almost certainly linked. Right-click and unlink them. And in Preferences>Note Input and Editing, I’d recommend turning off automatic linking of dynamics and slurs.
When you unlink, you’ll probably have to re-input a few of them.
In the future, I suggest entering a dynamics or dynamic group on the topmost staff, then assigning a key command to Duplicate to Staff Below.
And if you want to make changes, you can do so to the top only, then duplicate to staff below again, and it will overwrite with no problems. Much better than linking, IMO.
With linked dynamics, when you change one, the others change. So if you have a tutti and want to change all dynamics, it’s theoretically easier. I just think there are better ways.
Hi @konradh, I don’t have an explanation (as I cannot reproduce your issue following the steps you described*), just the “conventional” workflow that is working for me. In my example I create the dynamics all at once (so they will be grouped and linked), but you can of course create the dynamic for one staff and duplicate it, as Dan suggests.
No unwanted doubling or misalignment of dynamics are occurring.
(*Maybe if you have a chance to make a screen video of what you are doing exactly, someone will reveal your desired explanation )
I don’t see any logic behind this, I am afraid. I often run into situation with unpredictable results when editing dynamics. Sometimes it works in one way, sometimes in another. Maybe it is just me failing to see the logic, or there are some wrinkles in Dorico that will be straightened out over time. I don’t know.
Opening the popover and changing the entry essentially reinputs a fresh dynamic. When those dynamics are part of groups, it can get a little complicated.
If all you want to do is make a dynamic louder/quieter, the most reliable option is to increase/decrease dynamic intensity: this keeps the existing items in place, just bumps them up/down a level.
When the dynamic is grouped to a, let’s say crescendo, opening the popover and changing a p to pp results in a new dynamic object, ungrouped, while the old one exists and is still grouped to
the crescendo marking.
I found out that if the crescendo marking end point matches the end point of the dynamic marking (not grouped), changing the dynamic popover will again, guess what, do the exact same thing above, except now it groups the newly created dynamic to the crescendo while nothing was grouped.
If the end point of the crescendo doesn’t match the dynamic mark, everything works as expected. The moment I group them, new dynamic object, with old dynamic marking grouped to the crescendo.
Feels like I am playing mastermind level puzzle that keeps changing every minute.
Why can’t it just replace the dynamic selected?
By the way, the popover works just as fine instead of going to the dynamics section and picking it with the mouse like @Christian_R is doing.
My next rant is for another day, about linking objects and unlinking them.
These are only my 2 annoyances with Dorico.
Thanks, @Christian_R ! 0I will try to make a video of the issue. I don’t think I have any screen-recording software (Windows 11), but I will look into Camtasia. It would be useful for a lot of things (like demonstrations of music and scores).
One thing that is different in my case is that I added the dynamics and hairpins separately and then grouped them. Sometimes when composing, things change as I go. Clearly, the way you entered <ff at the start works better.
