Tuplets - Y instead of X

Dorico
1

One of the greatest advantages of one of the major products is that you can write a Y amount of notes instead of the given X amount.

Although it doesn’t match the common understanding in musical notation at all it is quite well documented in a lot of scores from 19th century until today.

Beside cadences there is one Master Piece that comes to my mind (Czerny op. 153) where 17 16th notes are placed over a quarter note.

How will Dorico deal with those “old and modern in one” situation?

2

There’s no practical limit on the ratio of a tuplet you can create in Dorico, so if you really need a 17:4 ratio tuplet for 17 16th notes in the time of four 16th notes (i.e. one quarter note), you can certainly do that.

3

Are there any irrational ratios like 3 4th : 2 16th ?

4

I’m not sure exactly what you mean, Djuro. Could you provide a pictorial example?

I think the answer is probably no: you can only express the ratio in terms of x in the time of y, where the unit of both x and y must be the same, so you might need to do some multiplication to come up with a denominator suitable for this kind of tuplet.

5

Thank you.
While irrational tuplets give more freedom in music education sheets, analysis and “free music” (such as aleatoric) I guess it could be achieved in another way inside of Dorico.
An “example”:

6

You can certainly achieve a tuplet like that by specifying a ratio of e.g. 24:2 with a 16th unit, i.e. to make 24 16ths in the time of two, and then input three half notes into the tuplet, but the number that would appear in the ratio would be 24 rather than 3, of course.

7

by the way, how did you get that “wavy line” under the “repeat” direction? i’m trying to do something similar in aleatoric music, repeating an internal section… thank you!

8

That example wasn’t done in Dorico, Andy. You can, however, create a wiggly line like that using Shift+X text by copying and pasting one of the symbols shown on this page of the SMuFL specification. You should find that if you paste multiple copies of the same glyph into a text item, the glyphs tessellate correctly.