When I copy and paste a measure then Dorico think it’s a 2nd voice. When I go into the Properties of each note then there are no “starts voice” or “ends voice”. I tried “remove rest” and I tried “enter + shift + v” with no luck.
Any help?
Here’s a video I made to show exactly what’s happening:
Turn on your voice colours from the View menu. Or look at the status bar, where you can clearly see that bar 141 is in Down-stem Voice 1, not Up-stem Voice 1.
If it’s all supposed to be in a single voice, select the passage and go Edit (or right-click) > Voices > Change Voice > Up-stem Voice 1.
Remove rests does not change voice assignments. It simply hides a rest. That is why the notes in 142 flipped direction - there was no longer a visible rest to force the stem direction.
(I think Dorico’s up-stem/down-stem terminology is an unnecessary confusion. It appears to have no influence at all on stem direction!)
The nominal stem direction applies when two or more voices are present simultaneously.
This is generally unhelpful leading to this sort of nonsense (both up-stem voices)…
Given voices respect position in the staff to determine stem direction, and you can selectively flip stems, and you can identify voices by colour, it would be far simpler just to create voices.
Voices only respect staff position for stem direction when they’re the only voice present.
Both Sibelius and MuseScore have Voices 1 and 3 as nominally stems-up and voices 2 and 4 as nominally stems-down, but again, if there’s only one voice present then the number has no bearing on the default stem directions - they respect the staff position.
It strikes me that Finale is the (big) outlier, in that users can set the nominal stem direction of a layer without renaming/renumbering it.
Are you suggesting that in a multiple voice situation, every note in every voice should respect the staff position by default? If so, it would be at odds with all three of the other main notation programs.
No. I’m just suggesting Dorico should make an intelligent guess to avoid situations like this…
Yes I know this is an extreme, and potentially absurd, example. But there are many situations where it would be useful to retain the identity of a motif (by preserving its voice) without that affecting the most elegant layout.
I’m used to Upstem 1/2 behavior, so I prefer it as it is. I regularly combine an Upstem Voice 1 melody line with cue-sized Upstem Voice 2 interlude lines. I want them both upstem.
I tend to think of Downstem Voice 1 as a “secondary” or lesser voice. Anything beyond the first two voices, it’s all subjective IMO.
As an aside, I can’t say how thankful I am that Dorico respects default stem direction if the voice in question is the only voice in a measure. Finale doesn’t, and it used to drive me nuts.
I have learned to be methodical about voice management. When I get a Dorico file from a composer to “finish,” the first thing I do is turn on voice colors and make sure mostly everything is light blue (like Todd, I’d also like to be able to make the “first” voice black).
Oh, and quick key commands to change selected notes to Upstem Voice 1 and Downstem Voice 1 (Alt-1 and Alt-2, respectively).
if two voices cross, their stem direction should remain to be able to identify the voice leading.
