I’ve looked into this today, and the current behaviour is deliberate. When pitch before duration input is active:
– If Play changes of shadow note pitch in pitch before duration input is deactivated (on the Note Input and Editing page of Preferences), Dorico won’t audition when you type a key for either a pitch or a duration.
– If, however, Play changes of shadow note pitch in pitch before duration input is activated:
- If Specify accidental, rhythm dot and articulations is set to After inputting note Dorico will audition only when you type a key for a pitch (including an accidental, or transposing by step or an octave)
- If Specify accidental, rhythm dot and articulations is set to Before inputting note, by contrast, Dorico will audition only when you type a key for a duration
When you’re using a MIDI keyboard, of course, you will hear the pitch whenever you play a note, and that’s as expected.
But when you’re using the computer keyboard, users complained about hearing the note both when they specified the pitch and then when they specified the duration.
Perhaps what we should do in future is add two separate options, allowing you to choose whether, when pitch before duration note input is active, Dorico should audition when you specify a pitch and when you specify a duration?
I’d be curious to hear what other pitch before duration users think about this.