Is there an "Idiot's Guide" for Dorico?

Former Finale user. Is there an “Idiot’s Guide” to Dorico? The Finale tutorial made it easy to learn. Is there a comparable Dorico tutorial platform for this Ludite?

Welcome!

There are, yes!

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Dorico goes with the more affirming title Dorico First Steps:

EDIT: Is there an "Idiot's Guide" for Dorico? - #6 by Lillie_Harris

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Also in Dorico itself there is the Hub, and under "Learning there is good stuff

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Dorico Ressources:

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The latest version of First Steps, that corresponds to 5.1 and is hosted on our new portal, is available here:

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My advice:

Ask yourself ‘Am I an idiot?’

If yes
don’t try to learn Dorico.
else
follow the ‘First Steps Guide’.

I’m sure the OP is not an idiot, so it looks like the First Steps Guide is the thing to study.

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Oops — so sorry, @Lillie_Harris and @bob.arnold4501 ! I got lazy and did a Google search and thought I had found the right one. :man_facepalming:t3:

Yes, on principle I’ve never purchased or read an Idiot’s Guide. I prefer denial.

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Thank you. I will try this.
Say a prayer for this Luddite! :rofl:

Even thought there’s a wealth of high quality (and free) YouTubes on Dorico, you’re left hunting around for what you want. You might want to check out Doug Zangar’s Dorico lectures on Groove3, starting with Dorico Explained. Step by step in a logical order.

Oh, I wish there were - the First Steps is something I struggled with for a few MONTHS in the summer, before giving up. I have just quickly looked through the new version, and find that little has changed - why,oh why are we being asked to set up a complicated piano piece when something much simpler can be used - like the Anna Magdelina music - as the music is much simpler, and this could act as an introduction to the whole process - the more complex aspects of Dorico can be added once the early elements are practised.

Perhaps I am asking too much - perhaps I should forget all about this software, although it is so comprehensive and is covering so many areas of notation - this is useless if it is not introduced carefully.

There’s an even shorter, simpler guide “Getting Started with Note Input” as well - look up the Dorico Resources page.

I tried and put 40 18th notes on the page.

I volunteer to be the idiot!

I’m glad I’m not the only one struggling! My biggest problem is trying to understand the flows. I’m notesetting an organ piece which is only one movement…but when I look at “print,” it shows both the full score (which has the registration settings) and the flow (which doesn’t). I don’t want the flow–just the full score.

Is there somewhere a simple explanation to working with flows?

Thanks!!

I think there’s a major misunderstanding here. Every document has one or more Flows, and that is just “a chunk” of music data. (E.g. your one movement is one flow.)
That music doesn’t appear anywhere until you put it (select it) into a Layout.
So you can’t have “a Layout, and a Flow” – you have one Flow, which appears in your layout.

If there are two different sets of pages of the same music, then you’ve got two Layouts of the same music (flow). By default, Dorico creates a score and parts for all the instruments, so you will have the Full score, and the “instrumental part” Layout. You can delete that, if you want.

Print mode lists the Layouts on the left hand side.

As ever, start a new thread and upload a sample document, or some screenshots of what you’re seeing.

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