different tuning / transpose guitar

Dorico
1

Hello,

I am designing a project for my school. I am planning to write music for an ensemble of guitars that are going to be tune down a few steps. Each guitar would have its own tuning. These are my possibility as a composer:

a guitar tune down 1/2 step, guitar instrument transposed to B
a guitar tune down two 1/2 steps, guitar instrument transposed to Bb
a guitar tune down three 1/2 steps, guitar instrument transposed to A
a guitar tune down four 1/2 steps, guitar instrument transposed to Ab
a guitar tune down five 1/2 steps, guitar instrument transposed to G
a guitar tune down six 1/2 steps, guitar instrument transposed to F# or Gb

I would like to write to this guitars as transposed instruments, so that the guitarist will be reading the same way a sax player or trumpet player.

So I would need to have a guitar instrument in Dorico transposed in:

1/2 step, Dorico guitar instrument transposed to B (a b9th up) - ?
1, Dorico guitar instrument transposed to Bb (a 9th up) - like a tenor sax
1 + 1/2, Dorico guitar instrument transposed to A (a b3rd + 8ve up) - ?
2, Dorico guitar instrument transposed to Ab (a 3rd + 8ve up) - ?
2 + 1/2 ,Dorico guitar instrument transposed to G (a 4th + 8ve up) - ?
3, Dorico guitar instrument transposed to Gb (a #4th + 8ve up) - ?

Any ideas how to accomplish this? All I am able to come up with is doing the necessary transposition to the default Dorico instrument but it will not playback correctly after that. Also using instruments that have this transposition

Thanks in advance for sharing any ideas

2

If you’re using 3.5 and want all the guitars to have the same music, you can use a single player and then have multiple layouts, each with a separate transposition override. (Not described in the manual yet, but here’s a video.)

If you want each guitar to have different music, you can use the Edit Strings and Tuning dialog to control the tuning of each guitar.

1 Like
3

Hi Lillie,

Thank you so much for such great information! The video is fantastic, just what I needed.

I was able to achieve the parts to be transposed and I can switch from concert to transposed. However, in the transposed score I haven’t been able to see the instruments transposed no matter If I chose Transposed Pitch in the Edit menu. What I am missing to do?

4

As it happens we have recently been discussing this particular convention of how to handle detuned guitars and show the notation written in a different key as a consequence, and we are planning to implement proper support for this, as well as capos, in a future version of the software. For the time being, as Lillie suggests, using the Clef and Transposition Overrides dialog should allow you to show the notation in a different transposition. You’ll need to create the transposition override in each layout separately, so don’t forget to do it in the score as well as in the part for each instrument.

5

Hi Daniel!

Thank you so much for all the information!!! It is so great the amount of work you’ve have done so far to the guitar instrument in Dorico!!!

I remember 20 years ago, copying classical guitar parts for my professors, in Finale, what a nightmare that was in terms of hours working in the never ending task of accommodating the letters for the right fingers, the numbers for the left fingers, for the string, articulations, slurs, voices… Dorico has made that a thing of the past and brought us to a new era!

I am a very proud to be a Dorico user and I can’t recommended enough to all my students, friends, and musicians. Congratulations and thank you for all the work and wisdon you have put into Dorico.

All the best!