I’m doing my first piano score in Dorico, and mostly getting a handle on all the polyphonic stuff, changing voices, etc. One problem has me stumped though. When I have different notes of the same voice and length, at the same position, with the stems in the same direction, they should stem together. Instead, they have separate stems, at what looks like different positions, making it hard to read (as in 1st bar of example attached, the pink F and C). If I change one of the notes at the same position to a different voice and give it an opposite stem direction, they appear at the same position, but it is wrong, since the 2 different stem directions indicates that the notes are played with different hands, and obviously the lower clef is all for the left hand (2nd bar of example, the red B and green F sharp). How can I make the 2 notes stem together in the same direction?
This leads to another confusing issue. From creating new voices, I now have over 20 in the list. If I want to change a note to an existing voice, I have to keep going through the list until I find the right one. How can I quickly determine which note belongs to which voice? Or in other words if an orange note is Down-stem voice 16 or whatever? Is there a way to mark a note and see what voice it belongs to?
Okay, after consulting with my classically trained wife, she convinced me that the original form of notation (imported as XML from Cubase) was more readable (see new attachment).
I’d been trying to avoid those rows of tied notes, which look even weirder in subsequent bars, but assigning notes to separate voices creates so many new problems with superfluous rests, notes not stemming together, etc., that it’s just easier (and more readable) to keep the many tied notes. I’d still appreciate any enlightening comments though on the questions about keeping track of voices I posed above, and especially why notes of equal value at the same position would not stem together.
I think you’re not using the voices quite properly… at least, I think you can do much better. The F and C of the left hand should be in the same upstem voice. This would automatically put them in the same voice column (check the voice column index in the properties, when you click on those notes. The properties panel is the bottom one. This is an Engraving mode property, by the way!)
You can select the f and the c, right-click and change voice to 3rd upstem voice (if already created). I’m just telling you, in order for you to discover all those little things that can be done and help us notate very precisely intricate chords
Hope it helps !
