Banjo strings & Tunings

Dorico
1

I am trying to set up strings & tunings for a 5-string banjo capoed at the 2nd fret. In “Edit Strings and Tuning”
I’ve done:

  1. defined a partial capo on fret 2 of strings 1-4.
  2. changed the pitch of the 5th string open to A4.
    In the Layout Options I set the notation to Tablature Only
    In Write mode I changed the key to A major.
    But, I cannot enter a 1 or 2 on any string. When I do, Dorico enters 0. I can enter 3 or higher. Do I need to transpose the fingering I enter by 2, so the second fret capoed at 2, becomes 4??
    What am I not understanding about the setup?
    Thanks!
2

With a partial capo, the frets retain their original numbers, except for notes that are open which count as 0. So fret 1 is now “behind” the capo (thus unavailable), and fret 2 is now an open string. This is different to how the full capo works where the numbers are counted from the capo position.

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3

Thank you for your reply.
When I tried a full capo, I had trouble with the 5th string pitch on payback. (The 5th string starts at the 5th fret and does in reality cannot be capoed.)

So I guess I forget the capo and define a tuning which is a step higher than the one provided.

4

That might be your best option. Alternatively you could try using a full capo but changing the tuning of the fifth string to get the correct playback - that might work but I’m not sure it’s easier.

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