There is a bug when you have Engraving Options → Chord Symbols → Altered Bass Notes set to “Show altered bass note only”.
The chord after an ending should reflect the measure BEFORE the ending. Instead, it is looking at the immediately preceding measure.
In the example below, the first chord in the 2nd ending is G/D. But it follows C#dim7, so a player might think it is supposed to be C#dim/D. It would probably be wise to always show the entire chord after any repeat sign, regardless of the setting.
Seems to be the same issue: Chord symbol bug - Dorico - Steinberg Forums. Daniel has acknowledged this limitation (reported during a time when repeats were not considered during playback), so I’m sure it’s on the team’s radar.
Yes, Dorico doesn’t really take repeats into account at all at the moment in terms of the graphical appearance of the score. A lot of work remains to be done in that area, which we will get to as support for repeats is built up.
This is really nit-picky, but I mention it so you can consider it along with everything else related to repeats. I am a real stickler about cautionary accidentals. I have marginal eyesight and I consider any un-parenthesized cautionary to be an act of war. It should never be done for anything above the very most elementary music, IMHO, but I know others don’t feel that way.
The reason is because with limited eyesight (and people with perfect vision often have to read under difficult conditions too), a sharp looks almost identical to a natural. I don’t need cautionary accidentals. They get in the way. If you are going to use a cautionary, put them in parentheses so we have a fighting chance to not misplay the note.
Setting that philosophical point aside, see the example below. That C, the pickup to the last bar, is NOT a coutionary. You are treating it as such because a C-flat appears in the first ending. But in determining which notes should have cautionary accidentals, you should look at the flow of music as played, not as printed.
If I may… You can choose whether you want an accidental to be parenthesized, hidden or displayed, clicking on it and choosing the option that suits you in the properties panel.
Yes. I understand that. The default is a poor one, IMHO, but that’s just me I suppose.
The point is that when you select the option for cautionaries to be parenthesized (which is always the correct choice IMHO, except for elementary music books), Dorico is mis-handling it. It is considering a note to need a cautionary accidental when it should not because Dorico is not respecting the first ending. In understand the work is not finished in this area, so I am just pointing out this little problem so that it can be corrected when everything else is done in this area.
Regardless of whether the bracketed C natural in the 2nd time bar is a cautionary or not (I’d argue it is), the C flat in the 1st time bar arguably ought to be a B natural - a) it’s ascending and b) you’re in C minor. Unless i’m being very dense it functions as a sharpened 7th, not a flattened tonic.
Dear cparmerlee,
You can set your own preferences for parenthesized cautionaries under Notation options > Accidentals > Cautionary accidentals. You can use “Save as default” to make these settings apply to all new projects.
andgie, I don’t think that’s the point. I think cparmerlee (Craig?) was pointing out that as yet, Dorico doesn’t take into account the fact that first time bars are irrelevant when calculating necessary cautionaries in second time bars. I don’t really know why he bothered, given Daniel’s already explained that there’s more work to do in this area, and that it’s already on the to-do list, higher up in this thread.
Yes, I agree with you.
That yields the image below. That does have the happy result of not considering the last note C as a cautionary. But it still considers the Bb in measure 13 to be a cautionary, and it most certainly is not because the only non-flatted B anywhere around that is in the first ending, which should be disregarded for the purpose of cautionaries. And just to reiterate, I consider these very minor points, and only bring this up in the spirit of helping Steinberg reach a new level with their product in due course.
Your comment about the spelling of the last note in measure 12 points to another such case. I have argued that notation products need to become “harmonically aware”. It is certainly true that many of the people initially attracted to Dorico already have an advanced understanding of music theory and are quite happy to do things, such as spelling accidentals properly, manually. By the same token, many of the people who initially used sequencers were high-level stage or studio performers who may not have needed or wanted too much help from the software. But I do believe the tools can and should evolve to make EVERYBODY more productive, from newbies to the most advanced players.
What I call “harmonic awareness” is, conceptually, having the notation program use the harmonic information that is available to guide the composer to a better result. Cubase already does much of this with its implementation of chord tracks. Not coincidentally, just yesterday Presonis announced StudioOne version 4, which matches Cubase’s chord tracks, and goes one step farther. With Cubase, the composer can enter chord information and cause the sequencer to alter pitches as necessary to conform with the harmony. The composer can try different chords, and the individual voices will automatically adjust to conform to the new harmony. It is all optional and selectable, of course, so nobody is forced to work that way. The UI also provides tools to guide the composer to other chords to consider, if looking for a little variation, intensity, or whatever.
Presonus takes it one step farther by being able to discern the harmonies from the existing MIDI data – and also from WAVs. This is all very powerful stuff for a composer or arranger. I’m sure this could feel a bit offensive to a person who is primarily concerned with engraving a work that has already been composed by other means, perhaps centuries ago. But these features are purely optional.
To me, it makes perfect sense for Dorico to also adopt such a “harmonically aware” framework. As a simple idea, I would love to have the OPTION to turn on note coloring to operate in several modes:
Mode 1) Different colors for each voice
Mode 2) Different colors for instrument range (green for the intermediate range, orange for advanced players, and red for out of range)
Mode 3) Different colors for tonal friendliness, so to speak (black for basic tones – root and 5th, green for guide tones – 3rd & 7th, orange for color tones – notes compatible with the scale defined by the chord, and red for notes that are completely outside.
And this “harmonic awareness” should also make better decisions with enharmonic spellings, such as you pointed out.
Given where the product is today, I don’t really expect Dorico to do these things for several years. But the team should be thinking very seriously about this. It is a real thing, and “chord tracks” functions will eventually be considered standard stuff.
Actually Craig, Dorico’s already (fairly) harmonically aware, though not in terms of understanding chord symbols and relating the notated music to the chord track. If you’d not typed in a second time bar at all, you’d get this.
I know; I just tried.
In this case, the spelling of that note again comes down to the fact that Dorico doesn’t yet understand how to deal with first and second time bars when it comes to this sort of thing. Daniel’s already explained, on this very thread, that there’s more work to do in this area and they know about it. You’re preaching to the choir!
