Then I go back and input some notes in voice 2 in the same four bars, no problem.
Then I go to bar no. 2 and input some notes in voice 3. So far so good.
Then I go to bar no. 4 and input the same notes as in the second bar but then I’m suddenly no longer in voice 3 but in voice 4. So now I have to move the second input from voice 4 to voice 3 so as to not mess it up.
If I then go to bar 5 which is empty and input some notes they go to voice 4. I would expect them to go to voice 1 since there are no notes in that bar. But it seems as if Dorico chooses the voice in which I input notes in the bar before bar 5, which was voice 4.
Let’s say I’ve input some notes - as in this case - in bar 2 voice 3. Does that mean that if I have a 100 bars piece and want to add notes to voice 3 in bar 99, I need to go back to bar 2 and tab through the whole piece to get it right?
Please tell me how to make these things work in a less obstructing manner!
(I’ve changed all the voice 5 stuff to voice 4).
2024-12-31 19:20 CET
Make sure you understand the difference between “V” and “shift-V” commands. One changes voices (if other voices exist), and the other always creates a new voice. See this video
When you start note input you can cycle through all the existing voices by pressing V.
(I can think of very few situations where 5 voices are ever required on a single staff. You can rationalise voices using right-click>filter>voices and right-click>voices>change voice)
Yes I know about the difference, I’ve seen that movie. Thanks anyway!
Regarding the video I went through it once more to see if I had missed something. There are a couple of contradictions.
“There’s no need worrying about which voice you should be using.” On the contrary it’s important to know which voice belongs to the same voice throughout the whole score so as to not mess things up.
(Links goes to the exact positions in the video.)
“To make it easier working with multiple voices you can choose to draw notes from each voice in a different color.” This assumes that the voice coloring is correct, and not something you don’t need to worry about, as stated in the previous quote.
(I should edit my first post since I for some reason got voice 5 in bar 4 the first time. But then when I made a test file I got voice 4 instead. Could have been something I did myself but I can’t rewind the situation. I agree, there should be very little use of five voices.)
However, I might know why these oddities happened. I’ve assumed that if a bar only contains voice 1 and 2, then, when adding an extra voice, Dorico will always select the next available voice, which is voice 3. But if voice 3 is already “activated” in a previous bar at the beginning of the score, then adding an extra voice will make Dorico add voice 4 and not voice 3. Am I right?
Yes, absolutely. Voices aren’t added just to the current bar when you use Shift+V. They are added to the current instrument, and are then present in every bar. You almost never want to add new voices, so you should almost never be typing Shift+V. 99% of the time, V is all you need.
