I’m a new user, but an experienced musician. And I’m so frustrated with this software that I don’t want to use it. My preferred method is pencil and manuscript paper, though I realize that people want engraving-quality music to look at. But it seems as though no matter how simple the task - e.g. entering a different rhythm in the same hand on piano in a separate voice - this software feels compelled to add extra notes. So instead of having a dotted half note in the top voice, followed by two eighth notes, and two half notes in what should be the voice below it, I end up with added quarter and eighth notes all of which are tied together.
My understanding was that Elements would suit most users. I took them at their word. But instead, it seems that anything beyond Chopsticks is considered advanced, and only Pro will do.
Elements supports multiple voices just fine. You need to tell Dorico when you’re starting a new voice (SHIFT+V) and switching to an existing voice (V). Otherwise, how does Dorico know which voice you want to modify?
Thanks for your example. The rhythm is exactly what I’m trying to create. This is what I got instead. Sometimes when I click Shift+V I get a voice box. Most of the time I don’t, and I do select the caret on all occasions. I wish I could see at a glance which voice Dorico thought I was referring to.
It looks like you’re entering chords instead of voices – you’ve got the chords tool active in the left toolbar. You do have multiple voices in your second bar.
Take a look at the manual and video about adding notes to different voices.
Basically, when you’re inputting notes, V will change to the next voice (if you have created one), and Shift+V will always create a new voice. So the first time you need two voices in a staff, you can type Shift+V to create that voice and enter notes in it; the next time you just type V to change to the voice you’ve already created. Note that the caret always indicates whether you’re in an upstem voice or a downstem voice.
Here you can see that when I create the new voice, the caret shows a + to indicate a new voice, and the downstem note to indicate a downstem voice.
Hi @Bruce_Hoag, and also from me: welcome to the Forum and to Dorico. Please have patience at the beginning of the learning journey with Dorico. It is really a powerful and elegant piece of Software, and I hope you will soon discover all what it can do.
Adding to the useful suggestions above. It seems that in bar 2 you have already inserted a second voice (which would be the Down-stem voice one, which leaves together with the Up-stem voice 1). Now, if you go to bar 6, all the notes in the right hand are probably all belonging to Up-stem voice 1. You only need to select the notes whose voice you want to change (with Command(Control) + click), and press V , and the “magic” will happen
(with V you just tell Dorico to assign the selected notes to the next available voice)
Also: you can visualise the voice colours, activating them from menu View>Notes and rest Colors>Voice Colors:
Yes, that’s right. In general, use a chord when you want several notes to share a duration; when you have simultaneous notes with different durations (as you do), then the notes go in different voices.
Colors for voices, as I understand it, are only available in the Pro version. Financially, that’s not an option right now which is why I have Elements.
