I’m still not getting how to manually enter notes in separate voices. For example, I’d like to have a low E whole note in the bass clef here. But I had use to the bottom staff to enter notes that I wanted stems down for on the top staff and then transfer them to the top staff. So now when I try to put notes in the bottom staff, it just overwrites the stems down notes.
How should I have done this? What is the best process for inputting two voices in the treble staff that have stems pointing opposite ways and then another voice in the bass staff?
You can then write whatever notes or chords you want on the bass staff, onto the bass staff.
If you’re new to Dorico, you might like our First Steps guide that walks you through a lot of key functionality, including multiple voices in a piano piece.
Turn on View>Notes and rest colours>Voice colours. That will help you see which voice each note belongs to.
Also, I see (by the shape of the caret line) you are using Insert Mode. There is no need for that, and it may lead to unexpected results.
Voices on each stave of a grand staff are completely independent. (you can have upstem1 and downstem1 on each, and you will have four voices. That is as it should be)
You can have as many voices as you want on any staff.
After the first voice, pressing shift-V will create a new voice, whereas pressing V will cycle through existing voices. They are normally created in order (upstem, then downstem) and normally you only need two voices on any staff.
Just be aware, that an upstem voice (in the absence of any other voice on that staff) will follow normal rules for stem direction (notes above the midline will be stem-down)!
Thank you for those specific explanations, Janus! Very helpful and that worked for manually inputting a 2nd voice.
So how would I input the 2nd voice then with a midi keyboard? I tried it the way you suggested by putting my cursor on the first beat, hitting shift-v for a new voice and then “recording” my playing, but it just replaced the previous voice.
