User manual

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changes the context, such as a quarter note tied to an eighth note becoming a dotted quarter

note when it is followed by an eighth note rather than a rest.

TIP

In Write mode, selecting any part of a tie chain selects the whole tie chain because it is a single

note. However, you can still input notations, such as dynamics, in the middle of tie chains by

activating the caret and moving it to the required rhythmic position within the tie chain.

You can force the duration of individual notes and rests, for example, if you want to specify

subdivisions within a tie chain that are different than the prevailing meter.

RELATED LINKS

Notes on page 718

Ties on page 938

Implicit vs. explicit rests on page 880

Note and rest grouping on page 590

Beam grouping according to meters on page 575

Caret on page 157

Inputting notes on page 161

Forcing the duration of notes/rests on page 171

Inputting ties on page 189

Rhythmic position

In Dorico, notes and items exist at rhythmic positions, which are calculated using their place in

musical time in the ow rather than their position in a specic bar that has a particular time

signature.

In Dorico, musical time is the number of beats starting from the beginning of each ow. For

example, instead of a note existing on beat 3 in bar 4 in a 4/4 time signature,

Dorico considers

that note to exist at beat 15, regardless of the time signature and its position in a bar.

This approach allows for a lot of exibility. For example, because notes and items exist

independently of bars and time signatures in Dorico, you can change the time signature without

changing when notes happen in relation to each other or adding rests at the end of each

bar. Instead, the barlines simply move to different positions and note grouping is updated as

required, such as notating a quarter note as two tied eighth notes if it now straddles a barline or

crosses the half-bar. You can even start writing notes without inputting a time signature at all.

Similarly, you can easily push notes to later rhythmic positions or pull them in to earlier ones

using Insert mode without the risk of them being incorrectly notated. It also means you can

think of items existing in the music independently of notes, because items exist at a particular

rhythmic position, rather than being attached to notes.

In Dorico, the rhythmic position of notes and items is separate from their graphical position on

the page. The

benet of this is that you can input items at the position in the music where they

must apply and then move them graphically without causing them to apply to different notes or

inadvertently split multi-bar rests. For example, if you want strings to play pizzicato from the start

of a bar, but because of tight vertical spacing you want to move the

pizz. indication slightly to

the side. Attachment lines link items to the rhythmic positions to which they apply, so it is always

clear where they belong, but are not printed.