User manual

Common practice accidental duration rule
In common practice, an accidental affects all notes of the same pitch in the same octave within
the same bar, unless it is cancelled by another accidental. If it is not cancelled, it is automatically
cancelled in the following bar.
NOTE
To ensure that the cancellation is unambiguous, it is customary to add a cautionary accidental to
the rst note of the same pitch in the following bar.
In Dorico Elements, the common practice accidental duration rule is used by default.
Common practice rules
In common practice, the accidental of a note in one bar is automatically cancelled in the
following bar. For example, in the key of G major, if an F♮ is in one bar, an F in the following bar
shows a sharp sign, even though the sharp is already implied by the key signature.
When using the common practice accidental duration rule by default, Dorico Elements also
displays cautionary accidentals. Cautionary accidentals, also known as “courtesy accidentals”, are
restatements of an earlier accidental. They are considered optional; that is, they are neither
explicit conrmations nor cancellations, but help to eliminate ambiguities.
Cautionary accidentals are shown in the following circumstances:
● Subsequent notes within the same bar have the same note name in different octaves.
● Subsequent notes in the following bar have the same note name in the same octave.
● The rst occurring note in the following bar has the same note name in any octave.
● Augmented/Diminished or double-diminished/augmented intervals are identied within
the same bar.
For each of these situations, you can choose whether cautionary accidentals are shown in
parentheses, shown without parentheses, or not shown at all.
Stacking of accidentals
If multiple accidentals are required for a chord in a single voice, or for notes in multiple voices at
the same rhythmic position, they are stacked to the left of the chord in columns.
For chords with multiple accidentals, accidentals are generally stacked as follows:
1. The highest accidental is inserted in the rst column immediately to the left of the notes.
2.
The lowest accidental is added to the same column, provided that it does not collide with
the rst accidental.
3.
The remaining highest and lowest accidentals are alternated in successive columns located
further left from the chord.
In Dorico Elements, additional rules help to produce a stack of accidentals that uses as few
columns as possible. The following list contains some of the rules that are applied:
●
Columns closer to the notes contain more accidentals than columns further from the
notes.
●
Accidentals on notes that are an octave apart are stacked in the same column. This also
applies to accidentals that are a sixth or more apart, depending on the combination of
accidentals.
Accidentals
Accidental duration rules
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