Dynamics over all staves

See attached score excerpt (I’ve blurred out notes for personal reasons). This is a 4-stave choral score. In this section of music, I’d like all voices to crescendo. In this particular case, I think it’s redundant to waste the vertical space to write “cresc” on every single stave, and I think it’s enough to have the word “cresc” only above the top stave, a little bigger, so it’s clearly implied that it applies to all voices. Similar to how a rit/rall designation would look.

What’s the CORRECT way to do this in Dorico?

Assuming you want playback, then you have to add the dynamics into the score, and then hide them.

There’s no way to locally change the Font Style of Dynamics, so you’ll have to add your “tutti” dynamic as Text (hiding the original dynamic on the top staff).

Can’t say I’ve ever seen such as thing, and it wouldn’t be obvious without written instructions describing the practice.

Most singers only look at their own line, so I guarantee you that they will pencil it into their own line anyway…! Soprano 2 seems to have a rest at the cresc point, so this is going to require discussion in rehearsal.

1 Like

Yes, if I were conducting this, first thing I’d do is tell everyone else, if they haven’t already, to pencil in a crescendo, which of course, defeats the purpose of leaving it out in the first place.

3 Likes

Thanks for the input. Some dynamics, I have inserted on every stave, and it takes up an inordinate amount of vertical room because Dorico is giving each dynamic marking a lot more padding than necessary. So related question: is there a place I can adjust the vertical padding spacing specifically for dynamics?

It’s really throwing off my entire page layout, because as soon as I start adding a lot of individual-stave dynamics, I start multiplying the number of pages needing as Dorico spaces everything out far more than I wish it would, and the score becomes less readable. (I have futzed around with different rastral sizes etc. and can’t find a happy compromise.)

You can reduce the distance that dynamics sit above/below the staff in Engraving Options. (Tip: keep hairpins half a space closer than dynamics.)

There is also the “inter-staff gap with content” in Layout Options > Vertical Spacing.

It should be perfectly possible to create an attractive vocal score without dynamics taking lots of room.

As ever, if you want to post an example project file, we can take a look and advice ways to improve it.

2 Likes

This screenshot (with blurred lyrics) is a prime example of what I’m trying to improve. Look at the “molto cresc” above the A1 part. It’s actually closer to the S2 lyrics than it is to the A1 stave. I’m trying to adjust that vertical positioning, making the dynamics visually appear closer to the stave they apply to. I did try the things you just mentioned above, but they didn’t help.

I know I can manually move those dynamics in Engrave mode, but as always, I’m trying to tweak the Dorico defaults so that it formats everything in my score in a consistent way.

I have changed my default spaces for lyrics below the staff (3/4 instead of 1.5) and for dynamics above the staff (reduced all of them by one space to keep them closer to the staff) zs was suggested before by @benwiggy. Have you tried it?

I haven’t found padding settings for the dynamics but I have changed their font size to make them a little more amenable to my scores. In choral works, in particular, I find that the default dynamic font size often causes the dynamic to collide with lyrics as Dorico places the dynamics “properly” above notes and does not recognize occasions when it would be perfect plausible to place them just slightly before the note to avoid the collisions. I may be the only one who thinks this so take it with a grain of salt.

It should be very easy to get the dynamics lower than that.

2 Likes


Engraving options>Dynamics>Vertical position>Above the staff

2 Likes

@MarcLarcher YES - this is what I was looking for! Thank you. I had searched through Layout and Engraving options and not found this. This setting has cleaned up a lot of “misunderstanding” around the score where Dorico’s defaults had put some dynamic markings closer to staves they didn’t apply to, but now I can move them closer to the staves they DO apply to.

1 Like

So, why is this distance rather than padding? This is the type of thing that I find confusing in Dorico methodology - what distinguishes the difference of such things and why. Knowing would be helpful to better understand the software.

I am not sure, but I think that this one has bearing also on Dynamics Above Staff. Not exactly padding, but related.

You can set dynamics for vocal staves at 1 space above the staff and temoo markings at 2 spaces above. If nothing gets in the way, that distance will be respected and your document ends being consistent. If things get in the way then the padding will be triggered.

1 Like