Good morning. Much to my embarrassment in my latest orchestral piece I found out that Dorico transposes my 2nd horn (in bass clef in full score) DOWN a 4th rather than UP a 5th. Can someone help me please
thank you
Steve
You’ll need to supply the document, or at least a copy of it with other parts/notes deleted, so that we can see the problem.
It’s possible that the definition is wrong: you can change it in Instrument Editor:
Change F4 to F3.
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It would be nice to know which is the concert version and which the transposed version in the illustrations above–or better yet to see a Dorico file or excerpt illustrating the problem.
Was there not a 19th-century practice of having Horns in bass clef transpose up a 4th rather than down a 5th?
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Note that there are two different Horn in F instruments available in the instrument picker.
The one above, labelled F Sounds 8va Bass Clef Transposed Pitch is appropriate if you’re replicating the older practice. In order to conform to modern practice you should be using the one below, and can of course add a bass clef on the page if you need one.
Ben’s right that you can modify instrument definitions, but in the long run it makes more sense to use the right instrument definitions in the first place.
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Thank you. Seems a bit long-winded a way of doing things, but thanks
ok thanks
I would probably put it in different words: if your software wants to cover all possible variants and offer them to you, you have to pick the right one of those.
Hello KB - of course, all entitled to our opinion. I’ve composed many orchestral scores across many software platforms and I’m of the opinion that this is long-winded.
I guess the problem is caused by having two variants to choose from.
Finale only offers a Horn in F with a G clef, and you have to add the Bass clef yourself.
The ‘correct’ direction seems to be a confusing subject, according to this discussion on thr Sibelius forum…!
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Agreed, writing for transposing instruments is never ‘easy/straight-forward’ I was a Finale user for well over 20 years and a Sibelius user for several years in-between. I guess I got used to the finale way which seemed much more direct somehow. That said the DAW interconnection of Dorico I like very much. I’ll read the Sibelius discussion at some point