Hi all
can’t get my head around this one
I have figured bass entry to Follow Input Literally
In this example with Shift-G I enter 6 on the D. All good.
If I then select the figured bass 6 and alt-click it to the C I get 742.
??
Also If I change the pitch of the D, the figures change
??
I guess that’s because that ‘6’ actually represents real notes D-F-B which, pasted upon C, give 2,4,7!
I guess so, although I can’t think of a scenario where that’s what I’d want. I just want the numbers pasted, not interpreted.
Any workarounds that aren’t MusAnalysis font?
Yes Dorico interprets Figured Bass numbers. This has great advantages. For example: if you select all (meaning, including the Figured Bass numbers), you can transpose, and the Figured Bass will transpose, too.
It is worth having a look at one of the videos showcasing this Dorico feature: https://youtu.be/t_hSn3JxwdQ?si=z_lF_0uwFkSI-hIl
yes, if I was transposing that would be great, but this isn’t a transposition issue. I really can’t think of any situation where I’d want the behaviour described above, except for answering the question ‘you have a chord in first inversion: if you move the bass note down but keep the other voices as they are, what would the figured bass be?’ (answer 742).
I’m not looking for Dorico to do my homework, I’d like a) to alt-click the figures to other notes, e.g. in a 7-6 sequence and b) for the figures to stay put if I happen to have put in the wrong bass note.
Any way to switch the ‘interpreting’ off?
Nope. Think of this tool as another way to add those very specific notes and not the intervals they refer to. It’s not helpful to do what you want, but all in all I like the way it’s been implemented.
You might want to request an option (in the Preferences) so that copy-paste figured bass copies the exact text (intervals) instead of meaning (notes). I see some real value in such an option.
yeah, I’ll edit the title.
You’ll notice that if you change the note to a different pitch, the numbers change too, in order to keep the chord intact.
Because it’s quite common for different bass instruments to have a different note on the same chord.
Essentially, Fig Bass in Dorico is a kind of chord. So pasting a Bb first inversion chord onto C gives you 742.
I would say ‘sometimes the case’ and an option to do that would of course be great. I just can’t see why this is the default behaviour, especially the alt-click thing.
I guess I just don’t want Dorico ‘realizing’ my figured bass or assuming that I want to ‘keep the harmony but change the bass note’. I just want to copy some figures and for Dorico to trust that I know what I’m doing.
If you want, you can call this the downside of the semantic approach. The figured bass numbers mean something in Dorico, they are not just a graphical element. On the other hand Dorico needs you to understand that things mean something - so one has to get past the point where one feels, someone is looking over your shoulder trying to “do the homework” for you. It is hard, I myself had this discussion a while ago…
In the mean time I can deal with Dorico’s solution, I would wish myself a “Literal, Literal Input” option added.
Before Dorico introduced its Figure Bass function (I think it was in version 3.5) we used Lyric input with a custom font “Figurato” by one of the Dorico users. It worked excellently, and you could copy & paste to another note, because the lyric input is “dumb” regarding the underlying chords, of course.
ps.: since Dorico version 4.1 the Figurato font doesn’t work any more, but one can use “GoFigure” font instead: A sort-of replacement for Figurato - #8 by benwiggy
Agree fully with this. The number of times one would need the figures transposed in this way are very very few IMO.
And from my point of view (lots of experience with B.C.) it is not Bb/D for the first 6 in the OP’s image, it is simply a ”6”. That is why it seems so backwards when I copy a set of figures and they change – the figures are the same, but the notes of the bass have changed; for me it seems that changing the figures is to apply some kind of chord analysis thinking to it that really has nothing to do with it.
So for instance, copying the first 7 in this example to the second is not copying a Cmaj7 chord, it is copying a triad (in the present key) with a seven added to it, built from the bass note in question.
This example is very simple, but in other instances it could be a great time-saver to be able to copy the figures as they stand! It would be great to have this as an option.
