For users working on musicals or opera, it would be extremely helpful to have a way to export lyrics from multiple vocal lines into a structured text format suitable for pasting into a word processor.
For example, where characters sing sequentially, the exported text could include the instrument/player label followed by the relevant lyrics in the correct order. Where two or more characters sing different lyrics simultaneously, it would be especially useful if Dorico could place those lyrics into separate columns or otherwise preserve the parallel structure of the text.
This would make it much easier to prepare libretti, rehearsal scripts, programme notes, accessibility materials, or documents for collaborators who do not read music.
At present, filtering for lyrics across multiple singers and copying/pasting the result does not work reliably, as only a limited portion of the selected lyrics appears in the pasted output.
I am so, so pleased you pointed me to this functionality - thank you. I had been looking at the filtering option, even though I regularly use Export for audio, tempo tracks, and MIDI.
I especially like the way the output is formatted to include the title, composer, and lyricist. Brilliant.
I’m curious to know why “Line 1 (Verse, Below):” is included in the output for each new section (by character), and whether there’s a way to suppress this information. It’s easy enough to do a Find and Replace on the output, so not a significant issue.
The formatting of sections where different lyrics occur simultaneously doesn’t seem quite right at the moment, as everything is presented sequentially. That said, I’m not entirely sure how this could best be improved without using columns to indicate overlapping material.
Thank you once again for anticipating what composers will need from your software - much appreciated.
I have a single player that contains multiple singers, each labelled with the appropriate character name. This greatly improves score presentation and allows instrument (singer) changes to be labelled automatically.
However, when exporting lyrics using File → Export → Lyrics, the various character changes are not reflected in the output. Unfortunately, this limits the usefulness of the functionality at present, although to be fair, I appreciate this may not be a workflow that was originally anticipated.
I don’t know how others work, but in my case the lyrics/text is already in the script/libretto, and I am copy/pasting it into the music using the Lyric mode’s syllable-by-syllable feature (albeit with a stop first in Lyric Hyphenator).
That workflow makes perfect sense to me, @Derrek, when working from a definitive version of the script. However, the collaborative process between composer and lyricist often requires continual refinement and revision of the text and the music, which inevitably introduces the possibility of human error. Exporting lyrics directly from the score therefore provides a valuable final check on the accuracy of the text the performers will ultimately use. While the score itself can of course be used for this purpose, errors are generally much easier to spot in a word-processed document, and this approach does not require musical literacy. Although it may be obvious to those who are musically trained how to read a score, it can be surprisingly difficult for non-specialists to follow in practice.
The export functionality Dorico already provides is extremely helpful, but, as noted above, including in @TonH’s helpful post, there are currently some limitations. I have no doubt that, over time and when resources permit, the development team will add further flexibility and functionality that could make this yet another stellar feature of Dorico.
