To my eye, the way Dorico presents hyphenation is not always as elegant as I would ideally like. For example, my strong preference would be for a single hyphen between the syllables in “eternal” in the context shown below.
I would value opinions on this, along with some guidance. I am aware of the options under Engraving Options → Lyrics → Hyphens, but a little unsure what a “space” refers to in this context, and what the consequences might be of making changes to these values. I appreciate that I could change a value and simply observe what happens, but I’m working on a substantial score and worry about introducing issues in other places that are unlikely to be reviewed again at this stage.
The screenshot in my initial post was from the score in Write mode, Page view.
That said, as Engraving options apply project wide, I’m curious to know if there is a setting that would improve the look of the score without changing the part.
I don’t think there is a setting unless you want to play around with the spacing between hyphens. Theoretically, one could increase that to the point that additional hyphens would never occur spatially but I do not know if that would actually center the hyphens between syllables as you demonstrate.
My perspective, is that it would be nice to be able to set the number of hyphens between syllables as a default option.
I very much like the idea of being able to control the number of hyphens as a property option. Let’s make that a feature request and hope the dev team add it to their ever-growing list, if it’s not already there.
Are you sure you haven’t adjusted the default values to start with?
The first setting is “Minimum GAP between lyric and hyphen”.
I’d suggest that you currently have set this quite small, which why the first hyphen starts near each syllable. If you increase this value, then the first hyphen will start further away.
The second setting is “Minimum SPACE to allow for hyphen”.
This is essentially “padding” – this space will always be applied before the first hyphen. The default is 1 space. I’d suggest this is quite wide. A smaller value will allow syllables with hyphens to be closer to each other, if needed. (I use ⅛ space as my setting.)
The third is the gap between consecutive hyphens.
If you only want one hyphen across such a large gap, then you need to increase the Minimum GAP setting, so that the first hyphen starts later, and increase the gap between consecutive hyphens.
If you have two syllables that are 8 spaces apart, and the gap before the first is a minimum of 2 spaces, then there isn’t room to put another one 7 spaces away, so you only get one hyphen in the middle.
There is then the compression factor, which is the extent to which Dorico says “well, we’ve almost got room for another one, so let’s put it in anyway”.
Just for fun, I set gap between hyphens to 100 and, at least on my currently open project, there is only 1 hyphen centered perfectly between syllables for all hyphenated words. I am not sure in the slightest if this will achieve the same in any other file…just sharing some “savage” thoughts…
Many thanks for this very comprehensive response @benwiggy - much appreciated. I’m confident I’ve never changed these settings, which, unless I am very mistaken, are the defaults used in the template that I am using ( Scoring Express for Dorico - Theatre & Studio - Notation Central ). Perhaps @pianoleo could comment, as my understanding is that he created it. I’ll explore a little more in the morning and report back.
I hadn’t even realised that was there (in the bottom field, under ‘Properties’). You can really do almost anything with that! Thanks a lot, Benwiggy!
It’s described here in the help section: Steinberg
I’ve spent some time this morning digging into the lyrics settings in the Scoring Express Theatre & Scoring templates, and I must admit I’m wishing I’d made better notes when I implemented these decisions (some years ago now).
That said, I’m of the opinion (like Ben) that the factory default Minimum Space to allow for a hyphen (1 space) is too wide: if you have eighth notes with a lyric on each one, the rhythmic spacing is too distorted by the enforced gaps between lyrics (or Dorico pushes a bar onto the next system). Thus we reduced this to 1/2 a space.
(By the way, a space is a scalable unit of measurement: it’s the gap between any two contiguous lines in the five line staff, or you can think of it as a quarter of the height of the staff. If you increase or decrease the staff size, everything in Dorico that’s defined in spaces increases or decreases proportionally.)
I’ll play around with it some more - we may increase the minimum gap between lyric and hyphen in the next revision to the templates - but in your particular score scenario it wouldn’t make any appreciable difference.
For what it’s worth, I attempted to recreate your screenshot here. This is with Scoring Express defaults:
I think perhaps at the moment our 12 spaces between hyphens is a bit too dramatic (certainly for your example); it’s a compromise to dissuade Dorico from putting in additional hyphens in music that’s a bit more tightly spaced than this.
If what you want is to only show a single hyphen between syllables, regardless of how widely spaced the music is, you could indeed set the gap between hyphens to 100 spaces.
That’s not something I particularly advocate, though.
I’d agree with this. As a singer myself, I know that it’s very important to be able to discern whether a syllable is part of a word, or not; and if the hyphen is too far away, or so few in number that they might be missed, then you might not catch it in time. Sufficient hyphens are crucial to read the context.
A great example is a piece where the words Christ and Christmas are both used, each having a different vowel. If “Christ” is on a page turn, or far away from the next syylable, you need to see a hyphen nearby, in order to decide how you’ll pronounce it!
The same applies to word extensions. We need all the help we can get!
I have zero complaints about the quality of the Scoring Express Theatre and Studio templates, which have saved me countless hours and continue to be supported years after their release. The product is modestly priced and an easy recommendation for anyone who values the time saved when composing.
On reflection, my original post did not clearly articulate what I find inelegant about the settings I am currently using. It is the placement of the hyphens, rather than the number, that concerns me. I am also a singer, and I wholeheartedly agree with @benwiggy’s comment about the importance of readily understanding the full context of a word. However, I cannot recall ever seeing hyphens placed in this way in published materials, though I could be mistaken.
As ever, it is wonderful to discover the functionality that Dorico provides to customise presentation, along with the properties available to refine individual cases. The example given in the manual addresses precisely the issue I raised in this thread… apologies for not taking the time to investigate this before posting:
