I’ve tried a few approaches with condensing changes, for example to prevent mid-phrase unisons for this bar, and it’s kind of ah-ok, but my favourite option would be to have a single stem throughout and to use unisons (2 noteheads) where Dorico writes “a 2”.
Is there a specific way I can achieve that?
Additionally: in cases like this I would like to try HN 1-2-3, TPT 1-2-3 together, but the main custom condensing group is 2+1. Is there any way to override that for a short span?
I find “Mid-phrase unison approach>Prevent mid-phrase unison” to work very well for this.
One weakness of condensing approach is of course that we can never know what the “state of condensing changes” is at any given point in the score. Why don’t you do a reset here and see what happens. There could be a rogue change earlier that you forgot about …
By reset, do you mean just inserting a Condensing Change without any active option?
If so, the result shown above is what I get after that.
In Notation Options I have found no trace of allowing unisons as double noteheads on a single stem, which here I believe would help.
Yes, you need to add a Condensing Change and tell Dorico how you would like it. You will also need to insert another one to reset the Condensing at some point.
See #3 in the first diagram of this link:
N.B. You can only do that if you don’t have them in separate Custom Condensing Groups already:
I suspect, then, that I have done things the other way around.
Seeing that the score mostly had 2+1 groupings, I created custom condensing groups in Layout Options for all brasses.
I perhaps should have left things as default (3+3+3) and then added manual condensing change in bar 1 and reset where needed.
Am I at least slightly on the right path?
Do you have any idea on whether it is even possible to get the unisons as double noteheads? From the few related posts I have found here over the years, it seems that it is not, but I hope I am mistaken.
A manual condensing change with both instruments sharing the upstem voice will result in double-headed notes. This will work well if the passage is made up of a pair of instruments playing in rhythmic unison. Because of this, there could be a lot of condensing changes required.
It actually works … sometimes
You know, faith and music notation have much in common!
Jokes aside, applying the same type of condensing change to two passages can sometimes yield different results, without a clear explanation.
In the meantime, I’ve had a lot of fun testing things.
What I would like to request, if possible, is:
give the Condensing Change window an Apply button, so that one can see whether changes are having any effect at all.
allow multiple selection of instruments in the list so that the same change can be applied to several instruments.
Apparently small QoL things, but they could have a great impact on productivity.
