Can I transpose a bass line written in the bass clef into the same part written in treble clef? I know brass bands do this - can I just copy it without having to reset the entire part? I want to show both versions of the bass line in the same score.
Thanks
John Kirkpatrick
Welcome to the forum, John. No, at the moment there’s no particularly practical way to do this, but we do plan to make it possible to have different transpositions of the same part in an easier way in a future version of the software.
I’m glad to learn this. I hope it happens sooner rather than later. All the 7-string guitar parts I write use bass clef, where my lowest note (B), the open 7th string, is to be written below the 2nd ledger line below the bass clef staff.
Can I achieve the octave drop by some setting in the Play functions? Or is there some other hack that will work?
IIRC The capability Daniel mentions is already available in version 3.5.
Now I understand “IIRC” as “if I remember correctly.”
I have spent some time looking for the function where I thought such a thing might be, but no joy so far. Can you share any buzzwords or clues?
If I remember correctly.
Right. I did go on a safari yesterday looking for clues, but I came up empty. I have 3.5. Where should I start looking?
You probably want the Clefs and Transposition Overrides dialog, accessible by right-clicking any layout in Setup mode.
Or you can add a clef on the page and then use its Octave Shift property.
It really depends on whether you’re looking to notate the music a particular way in all layouts (or even all concert layouts separately from all transposing layouts) or have more control.
Thanks. I’ll want this use of the bass clef for 7-string to be the default at all times.
In rare instances I would possibly want to have a brief change into and back out of treble clef, but always staying with guitar pitch–an octave below what the piano would sound for the same printed note.
I’ll work on understanding all this. It will be a real joy to have it working for me!
Wow. I’ve been on this a few hours now, and no success. Here’s what I’m doing:
I want Electric Guitar 2, the third staff from the top, to sound an octave lower with the same written notes. This will make it the most usable it can be. I want the notes to sound an octave lower when you play the written notes of Electric Guitar 2. How do you do it? I’ve tried everything I can think of after studying the section of Clef and Transposition Overrides in the Dorico Help document.
Add a bass clef manually, then set its octave shift property like so:
That’ll shunt the written notes up by an octave. You’ll need to shunt them back down an octave (Cmd/Ctrl-Alt-Down arrow). Playback will be dependent on having a VST that can get that low - the HALion Electric Guitar that’s assigned by default doesn’t have notes that low.
The 7-string electric range as represented in the documentation goes down to A1 a 4th below the usual E2 6th string pitch. My lowest setting for that string is B1 a step above, so I expect it to be there. Is that going to work?
Actually I do get the B1 pitch I want when I sound the note represented in bass clef as the 2nd staff line from the bottom. I want the written note to show an octave lower than that, i.e., below the 2nd ledger line below the bass clef staff… I think that will work. Is that correct?
You can think of the octave shift property is being like an invisible ottava line: it basically allows you to represent any pitch in any octave. I don’t have the brainpower right now to understand exactly what you want, and I caution against expecting the Dorico documentation to reflect what any VST is capable of (including HALion), but I’m sure that the octave shift property is your friend here.
I see that the solution is as simple as it could be. Thank you for showing where that one simple setting is! It’s all I needed, and that’s all either one of us cares about.
Where you may have gone wrong is your file has an explicit clef there. That takes precedence over what the Clef and Transposition Overrides dialog sets. So, before using that feature, delete any explicit clefs first.
