Flummoxed by Figured Bass

Well this is fresh. I’ve been using FB for a while without issue and suddenly this:

I input this:

Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 3.20.08 PM

and get this:

Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 3.20.16 PM

I’ve checked my engraving options and this shouldn’t be happening. Any clues?

What if you prefix your input with o to tell Dorico to treat your input explicitly?

No change.

Perhaps you could attach the project in question?

I’ll try. It’s huge… 471 pages (piano: an exploration of the Hanson harmony book). I’ll delete all extraneous flows and superficial measures and see what happens.

I assume that a figured bass item is being created, but it’s being created hidden for some reason? (You can verify this by showing signposts.)

Revealing signposts shows this:
Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 3.35.05 PM

despite this:

Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 3.35.18 PM

or this:

Screen Shot 2021-08-28 at 3.38.17 PM

The other interesting feature of this problem is that when I delete all of the irrelevant flows (there are 12 in total so far), all of the music in the remaining flow is … GONE. What’s also interesting is that deleting flows ahead of the final flow actually ends up combining all of the preceding flows (sans music - just text frames and graphics frames) into the final flow. This is weird.

OK. Resolved the disappearing notes issue and I’m attaching the smaller project file with the illustrated problem.

ChordConnectionsVol2_Piston_fifthedition_forDaniel.dorico (587.0 KB)

The figured bass reappears if you unhide the treble stave…
fig-bass

I’ve no idea why this happens, but I can reproduce it . Create a piano score, add a figured bass, hide the top staff and the figured bass disappears.

Thanks. This is unexpected behavior. But maybe it’s understandable since in Dorico figured bass implies some sort of chord that logically would include notes in the treble (or any clef in some system above the bass) clef. What is also interesting is that this seems to be something peculiar to grand staff systems. It doesn’t happen with a single staff instrument, such a the violoncello. Example attached: figured bass for the most part nonsensical but there for illustration.

Unexpected? Yes. Understandable? No.

I have had no problem with figured bass on single staff instruments.

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The problem is really an internal, technical one. Dorico doesn’t have a place to store things that apply to a whole instrument rather than a particular staff, and that leads to some unfortunate compromises: things like pedal lines, harp pedal diagrams, and indeed figured bass should really be applied instrument-wide, rather than being attached to a particular staff. We try to hide this rough edge where possible, but unfortunately some remain, and this kind of situation, where you hide the staff where the figured bass items are actually attached (even though that is not where they are shown), is one of them.

Thanks. Good to know.
(perhaps a footnote in the Manual might assist in future?)

I guess I don’t quite understand. You state “… where you hide the staff where the figured bass items are actually attached (even though that is not where they are shown), is one of them.” Implies that you think I attached to figured bass to notes in the soprano. I had actually attached it to notes in the bass. Is it the case that for Grand Staff instruments if the FB is attached to notes in the F-clef and one hides the G- clef (empty of notes or not) then the FB will vanish from the notes to which they are attached (and vice versa)?

I think you entered them in the bass of a grand staff instrument and then hid the treble stave.

What (I think) @dspreadbury is saying, is that Dorico stores non note data (like FB or pedal lines) on grand stave instruments internally in the treble stave.

Knowing this, the simple solution is for you to copy your FB (and the bass line) into a new single stave instrument.

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Yes, whether or not you had the right-hand staff of the piano selected when you created your figured bass items, Dorico will always store them in the first staff of the instrument. This is a technical detail that ideally would always be completely hidden from you as a user, but unfortunately under some circumstances this kind of thing leaks out.