Took the plunge

Updated from Finale to Dorico. A little disappointed in customer service. Sweetwater approved my cross-grade in minutes. Steinberg was taking days.

Some initial questions. If I simply have “one flow”, how to remove the “1. Flow 1” title?

It’s all in the First Steps Manual, easily accessible from the help menu while you are using Dorico.

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Thanks - I may ask a few dumb questions just to get rolling. In Finale, you could click “period” to make a note dotted AFTER inputting the note. Can you do that in Dorico, or only before?

There’s also an option when starting projects using the Create New page in the Hub called “Project will use multiple flows” which essentially controls that layout option from the outset.

Yes, see here.

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Thanks all. When I input notes at the end of a measure (wanting it really to go into the next non-existent measure), Dorico often edits the measure I’m in. What behavior do I need to fix?

Make sure the caret is positioned at the very end of the bar, ie at the final barline.

E.g. like in this video –

As a new user, you might also benefit from these resources aimed at beginners:

  • Our First Steps guide, which is a step-by-step walkthrough of creating a piano piece and formatting it.

  • This playlist of videos for Dorico SE, but the fundamentals here are relevant to all product versions.

Howdy again. What an amazing community.

Self-taught musician. I’m adding notes to the bass clef for Tenor voice. Notes are red, indicating out of range, but I’m sure they are NOT out of range. (I changed the Treble clef to Bass clef because that’s how I think of Tenor voice in traditional SATB hymnal).

Hi CedarTree72,
there are two ways, Dorico can interpret the treble g-clef for the tenor voice. You can change this (also afterwards) by going to the Player in Setup Mode, and “change instrument” to >Singers>Tenor>Sound as notated (I don’t know the exact wording right now, as I am not in front of my computer).
See also here: Tenor clef with tenor voice

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You will find that after the initial purchase/authorisation admin (which is centrally controlled by Steinberg), the Dorico team are very responsive.

Tenor voices are a bit of a tricky one. In Dorico, the distinction between a clef and the octave it plays at is a bit complex. For instance, Double Basses and Piccolos don’t show an ottava clef, but play at different octaves to those written.
Similarly, Tenors are (in some scores) shown just with a G clef (without the 8), and the octave is ‘assumed’.

For similar reasons, you can therefore choose whether or not an ottava clef actually changes the octave of the notes, or not. (In Notation Options > Clefs.)

Dorico comes with two Tenor ‘instruments’: one that assumes the octave transposition, regardless of the clef used; and the other which ‘Sounds as written’.

If you want to use a Tenor ‘instrument’ that changes the clef to the F clef, or other, then you need to use the “Sounds as Written” Tenor, with Notation Options set to ‘Respect the octave’.

If you just want to use a Tenor staff without any changes, then you can use the ‘standard’ tenor instrument without respecting octaves.

It’s a bit of a palaver, but it actually provides a lot of flexibility for all sorts of conditions.

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