entering freely played music in Dorico

Hi
I’m entering Georgia On My Mind - YouTube from my pencil written sketch.
Obviously John Scofield does play very freely over this Ray Charles song.
How should I write this in Dorico
1- keep the 4/4 bars and use smaller values to fit in all the notes.
2- expand the lenght of the bars to accommodate all the notes in their “aproximative lenghts” by using 5/4 or 6/4 meters where needed and hide it.

thanks for your expertise

I would say both are valid and it depends very much on your personal interpretation. That being said, Dorico provides an option 3: use open meter (Shift-M, X) so the length of the bars doesn’t matter. You can add barlines wherever you want (shift-B, | ) or return to metered music by entering a time signature at the location of the caret.

Thanks Herman
I chose a mix of 1 and 2
I did try Open meter but then the music became too crowded on the page and all beamed and I somehow lost track where I was.

I forgot to Add:
Insert mode is AMAZING to build up the rhythm from the pitches first entered as a big stream of 16th

Yes, in open meter, because Dorico has no time signature to refer to, you will need to do the beaming yourself. Right-click on a selection of notes, the options are there under the Beaming header. Or you can create key shortcuts for them.
Are you working in Galley view? That way you are not distracted by the changing page layout when inputting the music.
It’s Hugo, by the way, R. N. are my other initials. No worries though :slight_smile:

I worked in Page view because I wanted to have the original lead sheet in view with the same casting
Worked out fine
Still have to finish the fingerings

thanks Hugo