@Romanos401
I have also run into the vocal chant lyric spacing issue, and this would be a handy feature, especially for things like Preces & Responses, where setting an entire flow for a bar of chant results in many note spacing changes.
On a similar note (ha!) I’ve set up, in these kind of old-but-modernized scores, a custom notehead which replaces the longa, which matches the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal pretty well…
Welcome to the forum, Alan. Thanks for sharing your substituted longa. Could you attach a picture of the original publication for comparison?
Daniel, here’s a page from the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal, which shows the longas: https://hymnary.org/page/fetch/EH1982/126/high
Right, simple as that. Thanks!
Just use a Line to obscure the note! 
Ha! I thought that looked familiar but couldn’t remember which hymnal. I direct choirs for Lutheran churches these days but am an occasional chorister and soloist for a local Anglican congregation.
I don’t write out much plainsong and chant anymore. I shudder at the thought of making my online choirs attempt it.
Likewise, I know that this is an attempt to integrate chant into modern notation—which I applaud—and not an attempt at authentic plainsong notation.
Still, I grew up with chant and the Liber Usualis—yea, I’m that old—and miss the opportunities to sing it and stay in shape with my reading. If Robert Piéchaud ever releases Medieval 2 for Dorico, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat even if I’m not sure that I’d use it much (at all?). Medieval 2 for Finale is very good.
PF–
Ultimately, I sing from square note notation as much as possible. But I’ve found that transcriptions go a loooooooong way for many people for whom square note notation is a very high barrier. It’s terribly useful in worship aids too.
I went through a long period where I was transcribing for my choir to get them chanting at all (previously they had not been); then I would transcribe what we had in our books, and sometimes put the two bits of notation side-by-side on the same page; finally I transitioned the choir to square note completely and it’s been smooth sailing since.
One other useful scenario: when you need to include an incipit before a motet or setting of the ordinary. Sometimes it’s difficult for singers to mode switch between reading square and modern one line to the next.
But, as I said, I am increasingly putting square note in front of my choir and will put it in front of the congregation as soon as I’m able. There is also quite a renaissance surrounding chant in general (at least in the Catholic world) at this time, so I think that there is good reason for square notation to be implemented in the end.
Having used GABC editors, I drool over the svelte implementation of Medieval2. Robert, pretty please!
[EDIT: in addition to the above, I should mention that I’ve recently COMPOSED a new work in square note notation using GABC. There are many subtleties to that notation that are not (cannot be…) truly conveyed by modern transcriptions. It’s not dead!]
Yes, it’s quite beautiful. I purchased it and found it easy to use (probably in part because it’s nothing like Finale… it’s just using Finale as a host!)
Daniel, there’s no original that I’m resetting, as that’s an original P&R of mine. But, I’m so used to the 1982 (and all my gigs use that hymnal) that I like to match. I think I used three or four square chant notes overlapped in the creation dialog.
Alan, I took your inspiration and did something similar. If you’re on Mac, I’ve found that the Iowan Old Style hyphen, scaled up just right, looks very nice too. Strikes my eye as a little more calligraphic due to the angled edges. At any rate, I’m glad for your inspiration in this department because I find this even clearer than using a double whole. It is unmistakably perceived as unmetered.
@snakeeyes021 been following your discussions of choral and spacing issues.
These are good ideas. I’m new to Dorico, but are these not possible to do at the beginnings of verse lines?
A separate Question-- on Lyric Baselines–
I haven’t explored enough yet… is there a way to attach different lyrics/ or different placement of syllables-- to parts sharing a single staff?
e.g.-- Sopr. syllabification below their notes (between the staves) along with the Alto syllables repeated under that aligned to slightly different note values? [I know you’ve seen this in choral or hymnal scores.]
>> Basically: is there Dorico function for lyrics alignment to be assignable to attachment to specific (chosen) parts? I’ve seen the questions @dan_kreider raised about this, with needing to adjust manually the spacing of hymn lyrics…
As an Example:
Could this be solved by attaching the lyrics to align, say, evenly under the 1/4 noteheads of an Alto part – instead of aligning to the topmost irregular rhythm of the Soprano Melody?
Anyone’s thoughts?
Hi N2ity, I think I’ve understood your questions correctly, but mayhaps not, in which case, just say so and we can clarify. If I have, however:
While each of the things I have pictured for certain verse number appearances and conventions are all POSSIBLE in Dorico, they all have varying degrees of hassle to make them happen, as none of them are implemented via native functionality. The little underline to separate verses 3 and 4, for instance, is relatively pain-free. It requires only shift-x text and then a little bit of positioning and then potentially repositioning later on if your spacing ever changes. It’s really the babysitting due to potential spacing changes that is the issue here. Same with the asterisk. Now, attaching dynamics depends on how it’s done, whether by text or actual dynamics, but similarly, for the purposes of spacing, neither text nor actual dynamics can be anchored to the verse numbers for spacing purposes, so it all requires manual positioning. If using actual dynamics, you’ll also need to transplant each dynamic from a donor note or position in the music, which would affect playback if that’s important to you. The only thing in those pictures that is not currently possible is the way the “unis.” erases the background of the bracket. There was a change in the way Dorico calculates z-positioning between when I made that edition and now, so erase background doesn’t erase brackets anymore (however, I do believe the team has said they plan to give more manual control over z-positioning in the future, so this could change in the future). If I were to try to do the same piece today, I’d just adjust the spacing at the beginning of the system so that the “unis.” fit inside the bracket.
Yes, what you’ve described is totally possible… I think. So like, Sop. and Alt. on the same staff, both with lyrics below the staff, but with alto lyrics below the soprano lyrics? Yes, you can definitely do that. The alto would need to be in a downstem voice and then you’d attach their lyrics to said voice and then manually reposition the lyric line for that voice (at least I think that’d be the best way to do it). I haven’t actually run into that situation for myself in Dorico I don’t think. The reason for needing to manually reposition the alto lyrics to go below the soprano lyrics (instead of both trying to occupy the same space) is that I think Dorico assumes you’ll be moving the soprano lyrics to be above the staff, which I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of. If, however, the altos and sopranos needed to be sometimes sharing stems and sometimes not AND the alto lyrics needed to go below AND the soprano lyrics needed to not go above, then you’d need to maybe put the alto lyrics in either verse 2 or the translation line. I think that would work at least, but I haven’t tested it.
Did I get your questions or were you asking something else?
Not to derail this topic from the Choral, but mid-flow changes would also be a useful feature in other contexts. Some arrangers for ensembles containing reed doubles (e.g., for musicals) like to see the woodwind instruments in “traditional order,” the player order changing as instruments change. (The published full score of West Side Story provides an example, and I’m working on a similar case. One of my pages might label the top staves on a particular page as Flute 4 / Oboe 3 / Clarinet 1 / Clarinet 2 / Baritone Saxophone 5.) This is possible in Finale using plug-ins, but not in other software as far as I know.
Yes thnks. I’ve had situations where, parts might diverge only briefly in text sync (or with additions) but then mostly need one line of text. Often words above for Sopr. is fine anyway.
Attaching text to the stems/parts-- wouldn’t this solve the concern about unequal lyrics to note spacing that is in the the thread about “unequal spacing with lyric attachments”? particularly in tight frameworks like a hymnal page…wondering if that would fix text to note alignment problems.
This really shouldn’t be turning into duplicate threads, but rest assured Dorico does an outstanding job of hymnal work, and in relatively short time. I don’t believe I was ever able to get FINLANDIA onto one page with satisfactory results in Finale, but now it’s no problem.
Yes it does. This is how I faked the “this is what I mean” example above. The only way to get the extender line was to enter lyric line 1 but in the alto down-stemmed voice. You do have to be careful when doing this, however, as things can get weird if you have verse numbers turned on. If you enter a different voice mid-way through a stave it will plop a verse number in the middle too, which you may not want, so you have to watch out for that.
Romanos, if you like that hyphen, you might see if that font also includes an En dash, which might be even closer to a longer version. 
I’ve switched to using the arial italic dash, scaled up just a touch. It’s perfect for my use. I’ve also experimented with the special dashes but they are often too long when scaled up to match note head dimensions.
