It seems that I need to write the tenor voice an octave down for it to playback in the proper register. I’m using the standard treble clef 8 for tenor voice. The part indicates that I’m writing out of range. If I change the clef to a regular treble clef, it makes no difference. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.
fine with the choirs I use --has always played at the correct octave. Are you using the standard Dorico tenor instrument definition? Is this a new project or a MusicXML import? Which choir? The Expression Map doesn’t show any transposition does it?
Gather round, and I will sing you the Ballad of the Tenors.
The early versions of Dorico treated the Tenor as a transposing instrument, like a Contrabass, or a Piccolo – where the octave transposition is implied, but not explicitly stated. (There are, after all, plenty of scores where the Tenor part just has a standard G clef with no 8.)
Octave clefs were “cosmetic”, in that they didn’t affect the pitch: that was done in the instrument definition itself. (I believe Sibelius works the same way.)
There was “some debate” about this, and eventually, Dorico introduced three new features.
The first was the option for Octave Clefs to actually change the pitch of the music. You will find this in Notation Options > Clefs: “Respect the Octave”.
But of course, the Tenor instrument already transposes down an octave regardless, so if you respect the octave, you’ll be down two octaves!
So there are two Tenor instruments: one, down an octave, and the other at ‘normal’ pitch, for use with ‘working’ octave clefs.
Should that still not be sufficient, you can set the octave shift of any manually added clef.
So: in short, either use the transposing Tenor and “Ignore” octave clefs; or use the ‘normal pitch’ Tenor while “Respecting” the octave of the clef.
3 Likes
Thanks!
The default settings are “ignore octave indicator” and “sounds 8va bassa”. Use these and things will work fine – which is what I suspect most people like myself do and don’t run into difficulties. The problem is if you try mix and match, then you can start to make life difficult for yourself as @benwiggy has described.