A wee bit overwhelmed, looking for advice

Dorico
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Evening all, I am an old newbie. I haven’t written music in forever, but want to move some old paper versions of stuff from eons ago into the computer and want to try Dorico. A bit overwhelmed, but would like some direction on where to start/learn the software, both Mac and iPad versions. This seems like a good software, albeit may be overkill. Any suggestions on where to start would be great. Thank you in advance! Michael

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Welcome to the forum, Michael. Take things slow, and you’ll soon be up and running with Dorico. I would recommend that you start on the desktop version, and follow the Dorico First Steps tutorial, which you can find here:

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Hi, Thank you so much for the quick reply. I will get started!
Michael

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One thing to be aware of: the Dorico First Steps tutorial was prepared when Dorico 3.5 was the current version of the software. Don’t worry if you find small discrepancies in the way things look today — the guide is excellent and still works as well with the current version.

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Michael. Welcome. You give no clue as to your familiarity (or not) with other notation software, nor what sort of paper stuff you want to transcribe. However, Daniel’s suggestion is right - start with the the First Steps tutorial.

Others will no doubt offer their perspectives, but I do have a few thoughts to add:

  1. by default Dorico does a good job. So don’t go changing options until you understand the implications of doing so, even if Dorico appears reluctant to do what you want.
  2. understand the workflow: set up your players; give the players instruments; give them notes; tidy up the layout. Do not worry about layout (including the niceties of notation) until all the notes are in!
  3. learn the keyboard shortcuts and popovers. Transcribers are unlikely to get a speed advantage from using a MIDI keyboard.
1 Like
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Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it. I have much to learn.

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Janus, you’re right. I have not done much with music in decades, pre-computer use. I have a number of hand written compositions from college days that I want to get them saved and in other digital forms. I am completely a newbie at this stage, and have much to catch up on. That said, my son is a musician, and understands digital production. I hope to get these items into digital form and over to him for further production or whatever other creative surprise.
I also appreciate the advice, it makes perfect sense.
Thank you