I’m writing a Barbershop arrangement in closed score (TTBB two staves) and trying to select a passage and move it all into a new voice (creating empty rests above the first voice). I’ve tried using the shift-V (which works for a single note) but it does nothing for longer passages. Am I doing something wrong? Is there another way of creating two voices? Thanks.
Welcome to the forum, Ben.
Shift-V is the shortcut for creating new voices within note input - it applies to the note you’re about to input. V is the shortcut for cycling round the existing voices on that staff, within note input; again, it applies to notes you’re about to input.
V (without Shift) will work outside of note input on a selected passage, as long as more than one voice currently exists on that staff.
edit for clarity: if you want to assign existing notes to a voice that doesn’t yet exist, you need to select the note(s), right-click > Voices > Change Voice > New Up/Down-stem voice.
1 Like
Thanks for your quick reply, Leo!
I’ve managed to select a different voice to input above the notes, but it’s quite a long-winded process to go through and ensure that each note has the correct pointing stem (Upper voice should always be up, lower voice down). I was hoping for a way to just select just the upper voice and use the caret input as usual. I believe Sibelius had a feature where you could select all the notes in a passage and “push” them all into a voice, thus creating empty rests above the voice ready for input.
I know this quite a niche problem, but I do a lot of TTBB arranging in closed score, and I’m struggling with converting over to Dorico with this issue! Many thanks again for your help!
You could select a single note and redefine the entire upstem voice as a downstem voice or vice-versa (right click > Voices > Default Stems Up/Down). That won’t create a load of rests above, because that isn’t how Dorico works, but as soon as you invoke the caret and create a new up-stem voice (Shift-V) you’re ready to crack on with the upper voice.
(And as soon as there are reliably two voices on the staff, as long as the right one’s an Up-stem Voice and the right one’s a Down-stem voice there should be no manual flipping of stems required.)
Great, thank you! Think it’s going to get some getting used to, but I’m sure I’ll find a way round it. It was the Shift-V command that was throwing me I think! Thanks for your help.
I just want to add that, as of Dorico 4, Shift-V also works without the caret to create a new voice.
1 Like