I can’t find an option to produce the traditional tuplet bracket that looks like this:

I can’t find an option to produce the traditional tuplet bracket that looks like this:

Like this?

There’s no built-in option: the number always bisects the bracket. So, I created one tuplet that’s 3 in the time of 2, and another, nested inside it, that’s 3 in the time of 3.
I then hide the number in one, and hide the bracket in the other.

Dorico-fu!
Brilliant work-around @benwiggy and one that will work for me, since I don’t use many tuplet brackets. I am amazed, however, that this is not an option in Dorico.
How traditional is that tuplet? I’m sure I’ve seen a 3 above the bracket, but not below it.
Admittedly, Finale’s Slur dialog does alow for more options, including whether the number breaks the bracket, and whether a slur is used.
I’m still struggling my way through the Karg-Elert 30 Caprices, so I have these examples on my stand right now:
I’ve never wanted to use that notation myself, but I think it used to be reasonably common among certain publishers.
I’ve never seen the tuplet number above the bracket, only within it. And this was a standard way to show a tuplet within a bracket through much of the 19th and 20th centuries and continues to be. Here’s a random example from Stravinsky’s Petroushka:
It certainly should be an option in Dorico as it is in Finale.
In Finale the unbroken bracket is the default and one must check the option to break it:

Here is a Schoenberg example in a recent Henle edition:

My 2 cents: I’ve never encountered this myself and would consider it rather unpractical when working with any kind of fingering…
Plus, the tuplet groupings are actually harder to discern, since they now lack a visual marker which the “3” above the bracket would provide.
But, of course, according to Daniel’s guidelines, if it is in published notation, Dorico should support it… ![]()
@YourMusic.Pro Thanks for your comments.
I agree that there is a danger of tuplet numbers being mistaken for fingering. It is even more a danger when tuplet numbers appear without brackets, which is the most common case. For this reason, it is very important that tuplet numbers and finger numbers use different fonts and size and style according to the traditions that one sees in well-engraved music, and to which musicians have become accustomed.
Yes, the solid tuplet bracket is a commonplace in printed music and should be added to Dorico.
John, what do you mean by “solid”?
These tuplet brackets can be forced to show up in the Preferences Panel.
Or are you talking about the option to display the ratio/number inside the bracket?
Observe the examples in posts 6 and 7. Dorico (helpfully) breaks the bracket for the number, and currently doesn’t offer the option of this older style. It requires a workaround such as in post #2.
@k_b As @Mark_Johnson said, by “solid” I meant “unbroken”, that is, the style shown in the examples in this thread.
I hope we’ll get tuplets inside unbroken brackets in Dorico. I’m not convinced a now-popular design was an improvement. A broken shape used to be reserved for special cases, when overlapping spacing was required. As a symbol, a continuous bracket is much easier to read and process. Here’s a beautiful example from Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, published by Shott in 1931. (Also notice the use of French beaming!)
I couldn’t resist checking how Dorico can handle a page from the Stravinsky’s Concerto mentioned in the previous post. No French beaming, and it took some manual adjustments, but the full-bracket tuplets and the slurs came out pretty well.
Looking at the last two centuries of music from established European publishers, I can’t seem to find a case of the broken-style tuplet bracket. Is this a US practice?
Here’s another example from Penderecki’s Viola Concerto, published by Schott, 1987.
BTW, Leland Smith’s Score4 used broken brackets, so the practice must have existed by then.
The broken bracket style is certainly more recent than the solid bracket, so you are going to find more examples of sold brackets than broken brackets in the literature. This is another reason why the solid bracket should be enabled in Dorico.
Yipee!