I have a piano part. It automatically came with one bar when I created the part. I need another to continue composing so I go to the side menu and select the measure tool and then select “insert bars” and “end of flow” and I make it 6 bars and then I click the “insert bars” button and then nothing happens.
How do I continue composing when something as simple as getting another bar doesn’t work? And why doesn’t a new bar just appear automatically when I’m get to the last bar of my composition/flow? For all it’s issues, Sibelius is very user friendly when it comes to not getting in the way of composition progress.
I think the idea is that you need a time signature to add bars… select the rest in the first bar and invoke the popover by typing shift-M, then enter a time signature, like 4/4. Once done, you get a bar rest. With that rest selected invoke another popover with shift-B, and type +10. It will add 10 bars to the flow. But bars do get added once you start entering music. You can remove empty bars at the end by doing Write/Trim flow, or remove bars by typing a negative number in that popover…
If you don’t have a time signature and don’t manually create any barlines, you can’t “add more bars.” If you add more music, the last bar in the flow just gets longer (with no artificial limit to how long it can be).
If you want to use the mouse for note input with no time signature, you need to create some rests at the end of the flow to contain the added music. Double-click on the final barline, then hold down the space bar to add a stream of rests. If you create too much empty space, you can delete it later with “trim flow” in the “write” menu.
There is no easy way to “add a note to the end of the flow” with mouse input because there is nowhere to click to position the note - but adding notes to the end with the computer or MIDI keyboard works fine, because the orange caret (cursor) can be positioned right at the end of the flow.
Well that isn’t very intuitive and it makes absolutely no sense as far as flow goes.
If I create a piano part and there is an empty bar sitting in front of me, it should be the easiest thing in the world to add more bars. Dorico is already assuming I’m in 4/4 because that’s all the space it gives me when I’m entering notes.
I have such high hopes for this yet it seems to be programmed by engineers who think they know more about composing than composers. At least Sibelius works with the same flow as composing on paper.
If you don’t create a time signature, Dorico doesn’t assume you are in 4/4 (unlike Sibelius). It assumes you are using open meter.
If you create a time signature, then of course Dorico beams the notes appropriately, and automatically adds bar lines as you add more notes to the flow.
There have been several threads with (somewhat repetitive) complaints about poor mouse support for some operations, including “adding notes at the end of a flow”. (Searching for posts by user Flowerpower will find several of them…) Personally, I think the easiest solution (and the quickest way to use Dorico even when the mouse is an alternative) is just not to use the mouse - but not everybody shares that view!
… until you want to insert or delete some music in the middle of a flow, and you get into a fight with Sibelius messages about “tuplets can’t cross barlines” and such like…
With Dorico, you just do it, and let the notation sort itself out as you go along.
… that’s strange, since it’s being programmed by exactly the same people who were programming Sibelius, back in the days when Sibelius was still being programmed at all…
No, that’s not true: when you create a new flow, it’s actually only a single quarter (crotchet) in length. If you want to add more time without adding bars, you can just hold down Space (perhaps choose a long note value first, like a whole note). If you want to add bars, first tell Dorico what time signature you’re using – it assumes open meter until you tell it otherwise, unlike other scoring software (e.g. Sibelius has an implicit 4/4).
We have tried to provide additional flexibility such that Dorico is actually closer to writing music on paper, with more of the attendant freedoms, than other scoring software. But it does take a bit of getting used to; some people clearly find it harder to accept a different way of doing things than others. Stick with it, though: very few of the thousands of people who have bought Dorico so far still feel that the old way was better once they have understood a little more about how Dorico works and how it is designed to help you.
Thanks for all the replies. I was just getting frustrated, and I have some extra stress lately because of medical bs that I’m dealing with so the world is just a little more difficult these days. I’m going to get into the flow of Dorico even if the rough spots seem bumpier than usual.