Condense Score workflow

Dorico
1

Breakfast table idea…

What about a possible workflow whereby one could write a heavily reduced score and have Dorico extract the parts out from that. I guess there would have to be some mechanical voice assignment or something. I find writing on a condensed score tremendously liberating and much faster for the actual composing process. I actually typically do the actual composing like this rather than in a Dorico session. I’ve obviously got no sense of the technicality of such an idea and it possibly seems clear that the team have decided on the opposite direction but it seems almost by inverse baked into the design of codensing - can we go the other way here?

I know its a topic of engraving vs actually writing and I know I also need all of the wonderful engraving possibilities, as well as the option to produce a finished open score.

2

No, we thought long and hard about this when we were designing the condensing feature and determined that in general it’s not possible for Dorico to create a completely clear and consistent set of parts from a score that is input condensed, because that kind of condensed notation when created by a person, even with the best will in the world, will include inconsistencies and errors that will prevent Dorico from being able to work out exactly what the music for the individual instruments will be. There’s plenty of discussion on these points in earlier forum threads prior to the introduction of the condensing features in Dorico 3, if you care to go back and read some of them.