Fingering

Fingerings can be added to music to recommend which fingers players should use for notes. This can be useful for music aimed at players learning the instrument and for difficult musical passages where certain fingering patterns make the notes much easier to play.

They are often used in keyboard music, as players can use all ten fingers to play notes, and in guitar music, where fingerings are often used alongside fret positions. However, fingerings can also be useful for other instruments, for example, to indicate that string players should change the finger used to stop the string while holding the note, or to instruct wind players to use uncommon fingerings for particular notes in order to create a special sonic effect.

Figure: Piano music containing multiple fingerings, including a substitution fingering and alternative fingerings

Dorico Elements also provides fingerings for brass instruments. For example, you can specify which valves players should depress for instruments such as trumpet and horn, and you can specify the horn branch you want players to use for double horns.

Fingerings in Dorico Elements use a bold roman font by default, following accepted conventions for the appearance of fingerings.