You are not paying attention to the OT’s note mapping features. Read Annex C: MIDI Control Reference in the OT’s manual. Set the OT to Chromatic Note Mapping until you know what you are doing.
before I knew to put it into FOLLOW TM mode, i had already screwed up the settings by inadvertently triggering various program controls via midi notes while trying to get it to play
so by the time I understood that it needed to be in FOLLOW TM mode, it was too late, the settings were all changed in ways that I’m not advanced enough yet to understand so nothing was playing no matter what I did.
deleted my project, started a new one, put it in FOLLOW TM mode right off, and now everything works properly…