I’d appreciate some advice on formatting a score for a show I’m currently working on.
The show contains a large number of vocal parts and, to take advantage of Dorico’s automatic instrument labelling, I’ve assigned them all to a single player. So far, so good. The automatic labelling in the score works very well and I merely have to add labels in the VOCALS layout. However…
In one song there are three solo ensemble parts labelled Townsperson 1, Townsperson 2, and Townsperson 3. Townspersons 1 and 2 are female voices, while Townsperson 3 is male.
In another song, however, there are eight solo ensemble parts: four female and four male. In the score, I need these to appear as Townsperson 1–8.
What is the best way to set this up in Dorico? Ideally, I’d like to have up to eight solo ensemble voices labelled Townsperson 1–8, while ensuring that each number can be assigned to the appropriate voice type in a given song. For example, Townsperson 1 might be female in one song but male in another. The numbering is purely to help allocate parts during rehearsals; it does not represent fixed characters throughout the show.
Apologies for the long-winded explanation, and thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Perhaps, although I’m not sure. I suspect I’d still end up needing to label the parts as Tenor 1, Tenor 2, etc. As you can probably tell, I hadn’t really thought this through before I started notating the music!
Having given it a little more thought, I wonder whether the question I should be asking is this:
Is it possible to change a voice type on the fly? To be honest, I’m not even sure what search terms I should be using to research this in the manual.
Thanks for your patience, and apologies for my earlier confusion.
I have a Player that contains multiple singers. For principal soloists, the singer is named after the character. However, many numbers also feature solo lines sung by members of the ensemble, with generic names such as Townsperson 1, Townsperson 2, and so on. Townsperson 1 might be male in one song and female in another, depending on how the cast is being used.
The difficulty I’m having is changing the clef associated with a singer so that the correct clef is shown in both the score and the part.
I’m already doing something very similar, but I hadn’t thought of having multiple singers with the same name but different voice types, allowing me to choose in Galley View which one I want to use at any given point. Brilliant! Thank you not only for your patience, but also for taking the time to help me.
When I have multiple instruments of the same type (say, two trumpets), they are automatically labelled with the appropriate numbers: Trumpet 1 and Trumpet 2. What I hadn’t realised is that Dorico must treat different singer types (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, etc.) as different instruments, which neatly avoids that particular problem.
I’m away tomorrow, but I look forward to trying your suggestion on Friday.
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