This is my tiny beginning in Dorico for a project I am still tentatively sketching in manuscript. The Hardy poem She to Him, I runs through the piece, but most of the words are by me. I aim to have an actor speaking, as well as the two singers singing. This intermittent spoken narration will need to appear in approximately the right place, but will not be tied to any precise rhythm. Some of it is expected to go between systems while the pianist and singers are all silent, but much of it will be at the same time as the piano is playing, and sometimes even while the singers are singing.
In Dorico, what might be the best way to go about entering this spoken text?
Also, where might it best be placed when in the system? I would instinctively place it below the singers and above the piano; but is that right? I would prefer not to add a visible stave for the actor.
My solution depends on how long each bit of text will be.
If it’s the entirety of the poem in one shot, then rawmuse’s solution is possibly for the best.
If its moderately short phrases, I’d suggest using a 1-line staff for the narrator, above the singers.
I quite like the idea of a single line stave; but then how to attach the text to it with more or less normal text spacing? Would (on a Mac) option-space work to separate the words in a natural seeming way? I stress that this is a non-rhythmic narration, semi-freely paced, as long as it’s in approximately the right place.
This is sort of thing which is easiest (for me at least) in manuscript. I eventually managed such notation in Finale, although quite a lot of adjustment was usually necessary.
does the text need to be included in a single measure? or can it bleed over into subsequent measures?
You can simply launch text from any point in a measure.
You can place that text so it has multiple lines, though that may require some finagling if you need it to absolutely fit into a single measure.
In places it will be best (but probably not crucial) if the text is in the right bar (although still with some freedom), but elsewhere it can certainly ‘bleed’. Elsewhere again, a whole system might be taken up by a musically silent fermata (or GP) bar in which the text could be on several lines.
At present I’m throwing as many pages of sketched manuscript into the waste paper basket as I’m keeping, but I like to think ahead.
I could (I suppose) still do my definitive engraved version in Finale, but I’ve planned all along to take a serious plunge and do it in Dorico. This piece is around fifteen minutes, but it’s intended to exist together with several (5-10) ‘normal length’ art songs and duets as part of a loose commission for a collection of such songs, and all (I hope) in Dorico.
Hi @DavidWard, here some reference posts about one possible method (using a Narrator staff with centred text). Feel free to ask if something is not clear:
This is probably how I’m aiming to do most of the narrator’s words. NB This is my experimenting with the software, rather than the definitive opening of the piece.
I’m sometimes googling to ask how things are done in Dorico, which has mostly worked so far, but…
My thesis for my master’s degree in composition was a piece like this, and the way you have the narrator in this last example is exactly the way I did it (except I also put the spoken text in a box). When the narration happened along with the music, I just extended the narrator’s text horizontally over several measures, and ended the box approximately where I wanted the speaking to finish. So, all that to say, +1 to this method.
In case you ever want such settings (rhythmically indicated or ad libitum over repeated instrumental parts), here’s a sample page from Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat (a bit blurry in the upper L, sorry):
