I’m working on transcribing several Baroque cantatas. The vocal parts are written in C-clefs, with the basso in F-clef. The printed version uses treble and bass clefs for the vocal lines. There are also several transposing instruments, such as oboe d’amore.
Here’s how I’ve set up the clefs for the vocal parts (soprano, alto, tenor):
In Concert Pitch, I use C-clefs (Soprano, Alto, Tenor clef).
In Transposed Pitch, I use the treble clef (and treble with an 8va transposition for the tenor voice).
This setup works perfectly!
However, I also need a separate score for proofreading, where in Transposed Pitch, the vocal parts still use the original C-clefs, while the transposing instruments remain transposed. To achieve this, I created a Proofreading Score layout with Clef Overrides for the vocal parts.
The problem is that the Clef Override for the tenor voice doesn’t work.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
Project file attached.
In short: if you’re using a Tenor in more than one clef, then you need to use the “Sounds as Written” Tenor instrument, with “Respect Octave Clefs” in Notation Options.
Your situation is a bit more complex, because you’ve altered the existing instrument definitions; but you need to bear these options in mind to get the right results.
TBH: I just use the “Sounds As Written” Tenor, with a C4 clef added to the start, and then I just delete it once I’m happy with the notes.
Thanks, @benwiggy! I had no idea that the Tenor Voice actually has two “instruments” with different transpositions. But transposing wasn’t an issue—I set that up in the Instrument Definition dialog without any problems.
My real issue is that Clef Overrides still don’t work for either Tenor instrument, while they work just fine for Soprano and Alto. This is quite a big project, with multiple files and several flows in each, so I’d love to take full advantage of Dorico’s fantastic features to handle clef changes efficiently. Ideally, I’d like to set it up once and not have to manually insert or delete clefs every time I need to proofread or revise the score.
From what you said, it seems I still can’t get Clef Overrides to work for the tenor voice, even in a brand-new document.
I’m checking your file and noticing some odd behavior in my Dorico setup. Even though the Tenor instrument definition shows a Treble clef and there are no Clef Overrides in the Full Score, Dorico still displays a Tenor Clef. I do see the clef override in the C4 score, but that shouldn’t affect a score without any clef overrides. So treble now does not appear at all.
In Dorico’s defence, it’s a much rarer necessity than it ever was in Finale. I’ve possibly had to do it once in the last six years or so; and only then because I’d made a mess, rather than Dorico doing so!
No offense to Dorico here — just trying to connect the dots to better understand the situation.
I’ve noticed that Dorico has hung multiple times on my Windows 10 laptop, which might have caused theuserlibrary.xml file to become corrupted.
I suspect the crashes could be related to hardware issues. Sometimes, I put my laptop into sleep mode with Dorico open, and after restarting, Dorico detects that my digital piano is no longer working. Sometimes this can cause Dorico doesn’t work properly. Also, when I accidentally run two instances of Dorico (which I try to avoid), crashes seem more likely — perhaps due to issues with the sound card driver?
Anyway, it’s good to know that the solution to strange behavior can sometimes be simple. Thanks again!
