How to have different, non-default clefs in the score and parts

[Clement_Gester]

I am writing a project for a 5-part instrumental ensemble. It’s a piece by J. H. Schein from around 1600, which means it uses old-fashioned clefs which I’d like to keep in the score. I am making parts for the instruments, and for some of them, I’d like to create one part with the old clef and one part with a new clef.
Now I have chosen simple “Treble staff”-s and “Bass staff”-s as instruments for the project, and I’ve been manually changing the clef for each voice (in this case C1, C1, C3, C4, F4), which I’ve had to repeat for each flow. This transfers to parts, so everything was fine till then. Unfortunately, when I duplicated the part and tried to override the clef (C1 to G2, C4 to G2 an octave lower), this didn’t work at all (nothing was happening). From what I’ve gathered on the forum, this was due to my using “explicit” clef changes in the score.
So I deleted all said explicit clef changed (which reverted the clefs to G2, G2, G2, F4, F4) and changed them again in the score with “clef & transposition override”. It surprised me that this should be the proper way to do it, but I gave it a go. When then making parts with different clefs thanks again to clef override, somehow the override only applied to the first flow in the part… and then reverted back to the old clef from the score.

I have to say I am a bit lost, and I’m not sure how to proceed, as I don’t find the clef overried dialog particularly clear. To sum up:
default clefs: G2, G2, G2, F4, F4
desired clefs for score: C1, C1, C3, C4, F4
desired alternate clefs for parts: C1 + G2, C1 + G2, C3, C4 + G2 8ve, F4

Could somebody point me to the proper procedure to follow to get to this result?

Thank you very much in advance!

[dspreadbury]

Are you sure you removed any explicit clef changes from the beginnings of subsequent flows in all of the instruments in your project? As you’ve discovered, clef overrides only apply to the default clef, i.e. the one that the instrument definition says should appear.

The other thing I can think of that could be happening is that when you set up your clef override, you did so for a layout in concert pitch, but your part layouts could be showing transposed pitch (which they do by default, even if the instrument is non-transposing).

So here’s what I suggest you do:

1. In the full score, ensure you have deleted all explicit clef items from the start of every flow.
2. Decide whether the full score should be in concert or transposed pitch, and choose it appropriately from the Edit menu.
3. For the parts, likewise decide if they should be concert or transposed: you can select them all in the Layout Options dialog using the list on the right-hand side and then on the Players page either activate or deactivate Transposing layout as appropriate.
4. Now in Setup mode, in the Layouts panel, select the Full Score layout and right-click, then choose Clef and Transposition Overrides.
5. In the dialog, set the concert or transposed clef for each instrument as appropriate, then OK.
6. Now from the Layouts panel select the first part layout, right-click, and choose Clef and Transposition Overrides.
7. In the dialog, set the concert or transposed clef for the instrument in that part, then OK.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for the remaining part layouts.

That should be it.

[Clement_Gester]

Thank you very much for your help. I’m sure your solution works, but could you just help clarify something for me:
what is exactly “transposed pitch” and “concert pitch” when there is no actual transposition (and thus the actual pitch doesn’t change)? If we were talking about a clarinet in b-flat it’d be quite clear, but when only the clef changes and the notes don’t I find it less obvious. Is “concert pitch” a synonym for default clefs?
I’m sorry for asking what probably is an obvious question, but without knowing that, I don’t really know how to decide which setting to use for the score for example…

[Clement_Gester]

As you’ll see here, not even octave changes are involved. This is my score in default clefs.

[hopkinsc]

I suggest creating a player for each and every voice-clef combination you want. You can add a special full score and select to include only the players that are set up in their part with the clefs you want to be used for the score, and to exclude (uncheck) the others for which you do want the parts with a different clef than is in the score.

You never need to print or even look at the default score that would have all the players you have created. You can also ignore the fact that there are players only as a voice in score, so their part is otherwise ignored.

I do a lot of this, and usually enter the original clefs then later add players as a ‘player in that clef’ and an overly tall temporary score, just for purposes of a simply by-flow copy/paste from the original-clef part into the alternate-clef part. Sometimes it is convenient to set this ‘workspace score’ to use a rather small space size and just zoom in to work.

This is probably easier than navigating the redefinition of part-score relation in the case of using just one player for one musical voice.

As to the “transposing” question, you are on the right track with our B-flat clarinet example. “Concert” is lingo for the pitch stripped of its instrument-specific context, and I have found no sensible etymology for the term so far. However, I think of it as a system for showing in a uniform pitch notation how the instruments sound ‘in concert’ together with reference to in-common pitch-naming for the same sounding pitch.

Parts for so-called transposing instruments ubiquitously will show the pitch-name reference context for themselves. Fairly, it is just as possible to think of the “concert” score being in transposition with respect to the instruments. But the terminology stuck on the instruments being considered what is “transposing”. We work with it as given. Daniel wisely cautions for the overrides case to consider all players, even the ostensibly “non-transposing” instruments, because the parts-to-score transposition system provides an ease to making the alternate score formats. When creating exceptions, it is wise to think of the instruments that are in C as starting with a unison interval of transposition.

Anyhow, I think from the first part of my response, you do not need necessarily to consider the transposition and clefs overrides at all.

[dspreadbury]

Christopher’s explanation about “concert pitch” and “transposed pitch” is absolutely right. Another pair of terms that might provide you with another way to think about it is “sounding pitch” and “written pitch”. Transposing instruments (like the aforementioned Clarinet in B flat) have parts written a major second higher than they sound.

For voices, even though you could argue the toss about e.g. tenors (which are typically written an octave higher than they sound), there’s no difference between concert (or sounding) and transposed (or written) pitch.

The important thing, from Dorico’s point of view, is to know whether you are viewing your layout in concert pitch or in transposed pitch, as you can have different clef overrides in each case. (This is important for transposing instruments that have a particularly large interval between their written and sounding pitch, e.g. contrabass clarinet, which is written two octaves and a major second higher than its sounding pitch.)

By default in Dorico, full score layouts are in concert pitch and parts are in transposing pitch, but it’s easy to change this either via the Edit menu or via the Layout Options dialog. For vocal music, I would be tempted to put all of my layouts into concert pitch and then ignore transposed pitch altogether.

[Clement_Gester]

Thank you both very much for your replies. I think Christopher’s solution of several versions of each voice can indeed be a practical solution that I’ll seriously consider for future projects, but in order to understand a bit better how Dorico works on this particular issue, I’d like to try another way for this case.
I think I finally understood how to deal with “concert” and “transposed” pitch, even though in this case the “transposed” pitch is the same as the concert one. I found a solution that worked fine… except for the tenor instrument oddly enough.

Here is what I did:

1. I set the score to concert pitch
2. I then created the follwing voices:

• Cantus
• Cantus clef de sol (=G-clef)
• Quinta
• Quinta clef de sol
• Altus
• Tenor
• Tenor clef de sol
• Bassus

3. I set all “clef de sol” parts to “transposing pitch” and all others to “concert pitch”
4. In the Clef and Transposition Overrides dialog, I set the following clefs:

• Cantus: transp. = G2 ; conc. = C1
• Quinta: transp. = G2 ; conc. = C1
• Altus: transp. = C3 ; conc. = C3
• Tenor: transp. = G2 8ve down ; conc. = C4
• Bassus: -

And everything worked, except for the Tenor part, and I’m not sure why. Both parts and the score are in C4-clef. (And I double-checked that one part was indeed transposed pitch and the other concert pitch).
And when I go back to the Clef and Transposition Overrides dialog, There is something strange: when I open it, all seems in order, but as soon as I click on the line for “Tenor” in the chart, the settings change to “transp. = G2 8ve down ; conc. = no override”…

Do you have any idea what is going on?
Thank you in advance

Before I click:

After I click:

Visual result:

[dspreadbury]

Would you be willing to share the project file itself? If you don’t want to post it publicly, you can send it to me in a private message.

[Clement_Gester]

Of course, gladly!
Suite8_Bfl_4ab.dorico (1.3 MB)