In a 2-staff barbershop arrangement, although the Lead will have the lyric below the staff, the Tenor lyric goes above. The Baritone and Bass go above and below the bass staff, respectively.
Is there a way to set this all as a default? (I hate to keep saying this was easy in finale, but it was!)
No. But when you invoke the lyric popover, press Shift-up arrow to input the lyrics directly above the staff.
So much to learn. Sigh.
Thank you!
Another approach is to enter each voice on a different staff with the lyrics underneath:
In Library > Layout Options > Players > Condensing, create custom condensing groups containing Tenor, Lead and Bari, Bass. Enable condensing by executing Edit > Condensing. Finally, add a condensing change in engrave mode which puts Tenor and Lead in different voices and does the same with Bari and Bass:
Easy method : Dan Method
Shadok Method : John Method
In Dorico, all roads lead to Rome. 
Thanks to you both.
In the thousands of barbershop charts Iâve seen and worked on, they have never been 4-staff.
I (pretty much) know how to do it; I want to know if they can be saved in the template, to send to users who wonât know the tricks!
Understandable, but this is core Dorico functionality. Users will need to know how to use Dorico anyways.
Shift-up arrow isnât a workaround⌠itâs exactly how this is intended to be achieved.
Your are perfectly right, Dan, but⌠some people never read any manuals, and thatâs the problem.
Itâs a hundred times easier to ask the question on a forum.
Such is life⌠
No shame in asking on the forum, thatâs why weâre here.
You are a true gentleman, Dan, and you are among members the most helpful in this forum ; I do appreciate your posts.
I think I remember running into Wawoodman on the Finale forums (with another pseudo).
Heâs amazing and knows Finale very well. Helping him get the best out of Dorico is a duty for us, although Iâm totally incapable of doing so because, like him, Iâm new to Dorico, and I know Iâll need at least a year of learning to start using it properly.
But⌠being a great reader, I go through the manual every day before asking questions here, so as not to disturb anyone unnecessarily if I can find the answer to my question in the manual (or in YouTube videos) on my own. I make it a point of honour.
Although everyone here has given you useful tips, no one has answered your actual question. If you want to create a template, I would suggest that you prepare everything exactly as you want it and then create a first bar exactly as @wawoodman wanted it in his picture. Itâs best to take just the first bar of an existing arrangement that you have duplicated and edit it to look exactly as you want it to as a template.
By the way, I wouldnât work with âcondensingâ as @johnkprice proposed, because the distribution of the lyrics doesnât work satisfactorily with complex choral movements. This only works satisfactorily with homophonic arrangements.
I would definitely work with different voices so that you can handle the lyrics allocation better. As soon as you have defined a template, you can save it under âFile>Save As Project Templateâ and it will be available to you for all further arrangements in the Hub. You must give your project a meaningful name and also select âPreserve existing flowsâ. You will then find this template on your computer and can make it available to your other barbershop arrangers. On Mac this is in the Library under: âApplication Support>Steinberg>Dorico 5>Project Templatesâ. If my explanation was too complicated, you can also find explanatory videos or the manual
No, no, JĂźrg ; perfectly clear and very helpful !
Thank you for Michael.
The key is to enter your principal lyrics attached to the lower top-staff voice (lead) and then add lyrics as needed to the other voices and flipping the tenor part above the staff with F.
That is certainly absolutely right. But when arranging, I would definitely make sure that the lyrics are assigned to the right voices, which @Derrek mentioned shortly. Here it helps to display the voice colors: âView>Note and Rest Colors>Voice Colorsâ. I have created my own shortcuts for the keyboard commands: âChange Voice to Next Voice on Staffâ and âChange Voice to Previous Voice on Staffâ, which I use a lot. But as I said, itâs really important that the lyrics have the same color as the individual voices if you want to avoid problems.
