I want to notate that the piano player should hold C note down while playing the upper notes with the right hand. Is it possible to notate this C5 as whole note without changing it to other voice?
If I make it as a separate voice - it doesn’t align with the upper note, how should I approach this kind of notation?
Thank you!
Select the tied C and press SHIFT + V to place it in a new voice.
(I figure if you already had an existing voice, you would have known what to do.)
Subsequently, if you want to use that voice again, just press V to switch.
If you haven’t changed default voice colors, that whole note ‘C’ is down stem voice 3. If you select it and Context click ( Voices → Change Voice → Down stem Voice 1)… that should fix it.
EDIT: I cant’ actually replicate your situation unless I force Up Stem Voice 1 stems down (f).
Apologies for the confusion. I guess I would select voice 1 and press ‘f’ to get them correct and also, change the whole note ‘C’ to down stem voice 1.
Hi @gka, my next example is bad engraving, and please follow the other suggestions!
But just to know the possibilities, if you force the stems down on the up-stem voice one, you can then change the Voice column index for the C (down-stem voice one) to 0 (zero) activating the property.
This is only an exercise, and please: let Dorico put the stems and voices where they are more appropriate 
But it can be helpful sometimes to have control over the Voice column index :
No. Notes of different lengths on the same beat cannot share a stem (or, in this case, since a whole note has no stem, be in the same voice).
In your 2nd screenshot, the quarters are down-stem even though they are above the C. I would just swap the two voices by selecting the bar and pressing V once. The stems should be up in that case anyway.
When you need stems down like that, to show crossing voices, Dorico is doing the right thing with horizontal alignment.
Thank you guys, this was very helpful! I’ve changed all upper notes to up-stem voice 1 and that whole C5 to down-stem voice 1.
But I still think the stems should be placed down because the notes are high and looking at the context it would be also better, what do you think? If I force the upper notes stems down I still have that mis-alignment thing. I coudn’t find the ‘voice column index’ setting in my Dorico v5:
maybe they’ve removed that feature? @ Christian_R what version are you using? Thank you guys a lot!
The voice column index is only available in Engrave mode.
It’s quite normal for stems to point in the opposite way to normal, when there are multiple voices active in the bar.
Amazing, thank you @Lillie_Harris !
