I want my notes to go in the way I input them. For example in a 4/4 beat pattern, I input a quarter note, then a half note, then two eighth notes. I don’t need Dorico changing my half note to two quarter notes tied together. In that same measure, I input a whole note entry. I don’t need Dorico changing that whole note to three quarter notes and two eighth notes all tied together. There is a reason I want things to go in the way that I PUT THEM. What’s the solution? When I’m entering notes, I want them going in the way I want them to and NOT being automatically changed. How do I make Dorico stop doing what it wants and have it leave what I manually notate alone. Also, how do I make that permanent every time I log in to use Dorico for my current and all future projects. In essence, I do NOT want Dorico changing any note duration to what it wants using tied notes. Notes should stay how I enter them on all levels.
I have provided an example of what I want the notes to look like as opposed to how Dorico made its own corrections.
For everyone who is going to comment, I AM NOT LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO COMMENT ON WHAT IS THE CUSTOM OF THE DAY FOR QUOTE ON QUOTE FORMAT STANDARDS OF NOTATION. This is a MY WAY ONLY IS BEST situation and I want what I want. Not what you think I should conform to. If you can’t give me a straight answer, do not comment.
For reference, ALL CAPS does not mean someone is making an angry post or intending to be harsh in communication. STOP signs have all caps. WARNING signs have all caps. DANGER signs have all caps. Why? Simply as a call to action. Otherwise they would be considered angry signs. My apologies for adding this paragraph. There’s seems to be a bit of confusion. My all caps message is a call to action to keep comments on topic with actual solutions and nothing more. Thank you!
Hi George, welcome to the forum. You’re inputting notes of different rhythmic values here, so they need to be in different voices. Your first bar is all in a downstem voice.
Click inside the staff of the first bar to select everything, and press V. That will put everything back in Voice 1. Then you can select the first A and press V again to put it in voice 2. Voila!
Once you have a second voice created, from then on in that staff, you can change voices using V (Shift-V will create yet another new voice… probably not what you want). You can use V to change the voice of the note input caret, or even the voice of selected notes.
I recommend turning on Voice Colors from the View menu to sort things out. If it would be helpful, we can walk you through it. Turn on voice colors, then post another picture here.
Aside from the clear voice issue in the first bar, which Dan’s already dealt with, you have two options:
Dig into Library > Notation Options > Note Grouping, understand that there are very specific rules that do very specific things, that are very clearly illustrated, and set the rules that you want.
Turn on Force Duration (hit O). Note that in Dorico Preferences (on the Dorico menu on Mac, or the Edit menu on Windows), there’s an option to keep Force Duration turned on even when you leave note input mode.
The first option here is more in keeping with Dorico’s design: set global options, save them as default for future projects, forget that the factory defaults ever existed. The second option is the brute force way.
By the way, this forum aims to maintain a polite tone (though I’ll admit I fall foul of this custom more than most). Obviously we all get frustrated when working with new software, but it’s worth bearing in mind that most people typing here are fellow users, not the development team, and for that matter the development team are real human beings with human feelings.
Additional to Derek’s. comment on options and settings.
When importing MusicXML it is also very helpful to check the import settings in the Dorico Preferences (Cmd+,) . I used to be frustrated when importing 20 or more parts with many dotted and longer tied notes which Dorico kept breaking up as per its own rules as set in the notation options. It was a lot of work correcting such differences if you want the Dorico score to match the original.
Setting on forced duration in the MusicXML import setting in the preferences solves this issue and will save hours.
Hi @pianoleo, I have set the “Preserve Force Duration state when stopping and restarting note input”, but, as soon as I want to create a tie between notes as in the picture, Dorico creates a whole note (except if I press the key O) despite the settings in my preferences.
Perhaps, I miss something?
Hm, if I have set "Preserve Force Duration state when stopping and restarting note input” to be my default option I don’t understand why I need to reselect it before inputing some notes… So it’s not a default option but only applies AFTER I first press the ‘O’ key?
Is that right?
If you’re adding ties to notes that already exist, you are outside of note input. The caret isn’t active. The preference you’re referring to only applies during note input.
If you’ve typed the example above as separate notes, the safest way to get the result you want is to select the whole bar (click on the staff, not the notes), hit O (which applies Force Duration to all of the notes), then hit T (which’ll tie them all together). The alternative is to select the first note and hit O, then T T T T.
Ok, this is exactly what I’ve done but I have the same issue writing everything note by note. I must say that an option to leave “Force duration” as the default setting would be useful. Of course, I understand that Dorico is based on “rules” applying to the entire document. But… sometimes one just needs to take sketches or simply prefers to write duration in a different way without “intelligent” corrections.
If you’d started off with that preference turned on, and had initially hit O before inputting anything, all of the notes would have been entered with Force Duration turned on, so adding ties would have given the desired result.
It sounds as though perhaps you originally entered some notes without Force Duration, then turned it on, then expected it to retrospectively apply, which it won’t.
Yes, I entered notes without force duration because I thought that the "Preserve Force Duration state when stopping and restarting note input” would be the default option without the need to press O for the first time.
So, in the end, it is currently not possible to set ‘Force duration’ as the default writing method for Dorico.
As Leo says, it’s not retroactive. That’s because Force Duration is a property of a note. When you input a note, that’s when its properties are assigned, whether manual or local.
I love how everyone online automatically assumes that all caps mean someone is being angry or rude. Warning signs have all CAPS (WARNING). Stop signs have all CAPS (STOP). Why? For specific advisement and a call to action. If that wasn’t the case then those signs with all caps are intended to be rude and angry with a harsh tone. Please respectfully delete and or edit your response so it contributes to the topic rather than going off topic. Once I see that edit made I will delete this response to your off topic comment. Thank you!
Yes, I understand the global philosophy behind it, and one can always press the O key… however, it would be useful to turn on by default “Force duration” or turn off similar “intelligent” features.
As a newby, having used Finale for over thirty years, I understand the frustration expressed in GeorgeMaster’s post. To me, Dorico seems to try to be too clever but I’m sure that I will learn the tricks as time goes on. It is taking time though!
Welcome to the forum, @johnlb.07. If you really want to ensure that Dorico will only ever produce the durations you specify, you can work with Force Duration enabled at all times. However, you should be aware of the downsides of such an approach, including tying Dorico’s hands such that if you make changes like copying and pasting music to a different position relative to the start of the bar, or re-bar the music into a different time signature, it will not be allowed to rewrite the durations to make them easier to read. Where possible, you should use the options provided in Notation Options to tweak the results, rather than using Force Durations. But the option is there if you want it.
