Back to basics again

[ZeroZero]

After my little sojourn actually playing music, I have forgotten a lot of Dorico (again again). So I am trying to emulate the tutorial piece “Walzer-Capricen No. 2” - using the instructions.

I am coming unstuck at bar 25 which should correctly look like this:

A:

but for me looks like this:

B:

It’s close, but there are two mistakes. There are two voices in the bar. The first voice contains just the dotted minim, the second the rest then four quavers.
As you can see in A the slur is over both the rest and the quavers - correctly.

In B, my attempt, the rest appears below the minim, which is wrong, the quavers are correctly placed.
One can also see the slur is wrong. What I did was selected both the crotchet rest and the quavers, then hit the S key, however the rest is not included in the slur which seems counterintuitive.

Not at all sure what is happening here, or what to do. It’s a trivial thing, but I need to get these things right.

Dorico sages?

Z

[derAbgang]

I get it correctly just inputing the notes. The slur is a bit trickier. Select the Bb and cmd/ctrl select the last E then press ‘s’. It’s ugly, so you’ll need to flip it (‘f’) and since it’s still ugly, you’ll need to fiddle in engraving mode.

EDIT: I see what you did. Your Bb is in upstem voice 1 whereas mine is downstem voice 1.

[ZeroZero]

Thank you. My main reading experience is on treble clef brass and woods. Not so hot on Piano or writing for choirs. I think I need schooling on voices.

So, in Dorico, if a set of notes is all upstem, or all downstem. then this makes them part of the same voice I think. But then there is the V stuff - presumably up to four part harmony and beyond. When I experiment with this I get a lot of numbers in teh caret. Up to 4. Does each have two parts, upstem and down stem, or does each V voice account for only one.
I sometimes fiddle with a stem using F (for flip?) does this send the note to a different voice?

My neuron is a bit befuzzled.

Z

[ZeroZero]

Here is your example of the slur:

As you can see your minim is downstem and your quavers are up? I thought this means different voices and hence no abiliy to contain in one slur? Apparently not.

?

[asherber]

@ZeroZero

As you can see your minim is downstem and your quavers are up? I thought this means different voices and hence no abiliy to contain in one slur? Apparently not.

You can click one note and then Ctrl/Cmd+click the other note and create a slur, even if they’re in different voices.

@ZeroZero

So, in Dorico, if a set of notes is all upstem, or all downstem. then this makes them part of the same voice I think.

You can’t necessarily tell what voice a note is in by the stem direction. For example, all of these notes are in upstem voice 1.

It’s only when you start adding notes in more than one voice that the upstem and downstem voices get their stems set in different directions. And even so, you could have upstem notes in two different upstem voices, or you could have upstem and downstem voices with some notes flipped. If you select any single note, the status bar at the bottom will tell you what voice it’s in.

@ZeroZero

But then there is the V stuff - presumably up to four part harmony and beyond. When I experiment with this I get a lot of numbers in teh caret. Up to 4. Does each have two parts, upstem and down stem, or does each V voice account for only one.

You can have an unlimited number of voices in Dorico. Each voice is either upstem or downstem, and then they are numbered sequentially. So this is upstem voice 2:

And this is downstem voice 2:

@ZeroZero

I sometimes fiddle with a stem using F (for flip?) does this send the note to a different voice?

No, that does not change the voice – it just flips the note in the opposite direction.

[derAbgang]

@asherber has you covered.

[Derrek]

It might help you if you turn on voice colors in the View menu.

[ZeroZero]

What a fantastic set of answers folks. Quality forum. ,

[Lillie_Harris]

The principles of how to adjust slurs are covered in First Steps, here:

Adjusting the shapes of slurs (Dorico Pro and Dorico Elements) - Dorico - 6.1

[ZeroZero]

Still do not have this fully assimulated.

As far as understand things…
Default is one upstem voice, you can flip stems if you wish

However, it seems that Dorico thinks in terms of two subvoices per voice as illustrated in this Dorico video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKBU7z0gAVo. An upstem voice and a downstem voice, for all Numerical voices.
Therefore one can have two “sub voices” My term -either upstem or downstem voices) in the first voice, but one can flip any stem of both sub-voices - so you can’t necessarily tell later on, if you mix it up a bit and later return.

Voice colors go for the Numerical voices not teh subvoiceds. Upstem and downstem get the same color.

The first numerical voice is indicated by an orange note in the carat when in note input mode. There is no number 1 icon.

The second main voice is indicated by an orange note and the number 2 icon. This voice also has an upstem and a downstem sub-voice etc.

One can colorise the voices (not subvoices) using the View menu, View Options

You can also find the Properties of a note (in any voice), in the lower panel and set that note to be the end of voice or the start [of a] voice.

So, if I have entered say Voice 2 upstem in bar three, then in bar 99 is this voice still active, being as I have not closed the voice?

If In Bar 99 I select voice 2 and go downstem, Is this the voice of bar three, or is it completely independent?

Sometimes I have found, gthat in a single bar. after fiddling around I might have and upstem and down stem voice stream for voice 1 (which is represented just by a note in the carat) and then perhaps a downstem voice in Voice 2, then a third Voice with an upstem voice.

I found out that one can tidy this up by selecting all notes and pressing V, they consolidate, but the empty lanes (as described in previous para) are still there, at least briefly. I tried to delete these empty lanes, (indicated by orange numbers) but found no way. Then they kind of dissappeared without my conscious intervention?

Although THINK I understand the above help, I still feel I have not deep learned it all yet.

For instance, how do you delete an empty voice lane?

Z

[Lillie_Harris]

There are no sub-voices. There are simply voices. You can have as many voices on the same staff as you like.

There are two types of normal voices: up-stem, and down-stem. They are numbered separately (ie there is a sequence of up-stem voices 1, 2, 3 etc and down-stem voices 1, 2, 3 etc).

Up-stem voice 1 and Down-stem voice 1 are two completely independent voices.

Stem direction - Dorico Pro - 6.1

Once a voice is used somewhere on the staff, it’s “active” and available to input notes into elsewhere on that staff.

If you end up not needing a voice at all, close and re-open your Dorico project: unused voices get cleaned up automatically.

Unused voices - Dorico Pro - 6.1

The V command you’re talking about changes the voice of a selected note(s).

[asherber]

@ZeroZero

Voice colors go for the Numerical voices not teh subvoiceds. Upstem and downstem get the same color.

This is not true. Upstem voice 1 and downstem voice 1 have different colors.

[derAbgang]

@ZeroZero

It seems that Dorico thinks in terms of two subvoices per voice

I like to think of down-stem/up-stem without the “voice” nomenclature. So I think of them as:

up-stem (1) = Voice 1
down-stem (1) = Voice 2
up-stem 2 = Voice 3
down-stem 2 = Voice 4
etc.

If you enable independent voice playback for an instrument with up/down stem, they are displayed as 2 separate voices in Play mode, which I think makes it clear.

[ZeroZero]

Right, I try summarising again, “sub voices” (above) was my terminology. I am deep learning here, this is why I am so finicky

Let me instead call the voices 1u (voice 1 up-stem) 1d (Voice 1 down-stem), 2u(Voice 2 up-stem), 2d, 3u, 3d. etc..

Important note Flipping the stem of a note, does not change it’s voice. Therefore, a visually upstem note can be part of a “down- stem” voice.

To accurately identify which voice a note is in:
To properly identify what note a voice is in, click on the note, highlighting it in orange, then, whilst ensuring Dorico is full screen, look at the status bar (bottom horizontal panel) and it will say “Down Stem Voice 2”. When note input is activated, the carat also indicates which specific voice you are in. It only scrolls through the voicings you have previously used. If you have not used voice 3d, it will not show it. If you create a voice 3 D (using SHIFT V) then it will show is the scrolling.

Shift + V creates a new voice

V scrolls through the voices

To see voicings in different colors (in Dorico 6), Go to View/View Options, then highlight View Colors. Realise that the color of any voice, is changed to orange once it is selected. Therefore to see what voice color it is unselect it.

Correcting wrongly voiced notes
If you enter a note(s) into the wrong voice, you can change it by highlighting the notes in orange, then pressing the V key a number of times. This scrolls through the voicings you have made available. *As you do this, keep an eye on the status bar (Dorico in full screen), it will say which voice you have scrolled to. It’s a bit disconcerting to see the screen notation jump around, whilst you scroll through the wrong voicing options to find the correct one, but if you have notated your note correctly for that voice, then Dorico should get things into order.

The specific voicing selection (e.g. 2u) is shared throughout a staff (and presumably through out the the whole “part”). So if you enter some notes on bar 1 in voice 2u, then in bar 56, you again use voice 2u, you are using the same voice. However in the lower zone property menu, for any given note, there is “starts voice” and “ends voice” options. Not sure why?

I think there is no way to see the notes of only one voice of a staff in Dorico? (“View only voice 2d” - so to speak). Yet?

If you want to remove rests, perhaps to clean up eye clutter, then select the rest(s) you want to delete and go to Edit/Remove Rests. This removes only the rests you have selected.

If you want remove an unused voice. Close Dorico and restart. Dorico removes empty voices.

Z

[Janus]

@ZeroZero

However in the lower zone property menu, for any given note, there is “starts voice” and “ends voice” options. Not sure why?..

These simply control the appearance (or not) of rests before/after that note. Nothing fancy.

If you use remove rests, Dorico will automatically set the start/ends voice properties of the correct notes. (So you don’t have to worry about them)

Tip 1: Often, you don’t need to be precise about selecting rests to be removed. (eg. One click on some empty space will select everything in a bar, but remove rests will only affect the rests.)

Tip 2: You can create a key command shortcut to remove rests (I use shift-alt-R, but the choice is yours)

Please don’t overthink this. 90% of the time you will only ever use one or two voices on a stave. Now you know the important keys (shift-V and V), just spend some time experimenting.

[ZeroZero]

Thank you, your advice is solid and helpful. I am trying to deep learning Dorico that’s why I am in the weeds.

[Santiago_Galan]

I find this idea in Dorico of “pairs” of voices, one up-stem and the other down-stem really strange and confusing, and not related to the actual musical practice I have experienced in almost 50 years, in which individual voices are just numbered from top to bottom in the staff, and the stems just go up or down because of the relative position of each voice. That is what any other notation software does, where you just select the voice you want to use with a button, and never get fooled.

I would sincerely know the philosophy behind this idea of infinite pairs of up and down stem voices, so I could understand the benefits of such an original procedure.

[asherber]

They’re not exactly “pairs”, and you certainly don’t need to use them that way — you could write music in three upstem voices if you want. But I’m betting that in the large majority of cases, you’re going to want to create alternating up and downstem voices.

And for the times when you’re not, I find this naming convention better than having to remember that all odd numbered voices are upstem and even numbered voices are downstem.

[Santiago_Galan]

Thanks, Aaron.

But then, if they are not pairs, I do not understand why they are called “up-stem 1”, “down-stem-1”, “up-stem 2” and so on. Do not see yet why there are not simply 4 consecutive voices, with the usual behaviour of stems, as happens in the rest of the notation software (and in the traditional notation). Anyway, this is a particular feature of Dorico and we have to use it as it is.

Of course, preferences are personal, that is sure. Some things clear for some people are really weird for others.

[asherber]

@Santiago_Galan

But then, if they are not pairs, I do not understand why they are called “up-stem 1”, “down-stem-1”, “up-stem 2” and so on.

Dorico creates voices in two alternating buckets, upstem voices and downstem voices. Upstem 1 is just the first voice created in the upstream bucket, and downstem 1 is just the first voice created in the downstem bucket.

@Santiago_Galan

Do not see yet why there are not simply 4 consecutive voices, with the usual behaviour of stems

I admit that this took me a minute, after 25 years with Finale. But why should I need to remember that voices 1 and 3 are upstem, and voices 2 and 4 are downstem? Dorico’s way of naming them as upstem and downstem tells me exactly what they are and how they behave.

The numbering within the “bucket” is actually irrelevant, and Dorico doesn’t attach any importance to it. In fact, since Dorico will eliminate unused voices when you close and reopen a document, if I write music in upstem 1 and upstem 3, when I reopen the document Dorico will call them upstem 1 and upstem 2. And I don’t care what the number is, as long as I can make sure that I’m putting things into the same voice when I want to (which I can, either with voice colors or with the status bar readout).

It’s just a different way of looking at things. And yes, preferences are personal, and habits can be hard to break!