Only text in a flow

Hi,
I can’t find this in the manual or here, in the forum.

I am trying to make flow that only contains text, so I made a master page that only contains a text frame. The problem is that when I use this master page, a new page is automatically created with a music frame inside.

Is there a way to avoid having music in a flow?
Thanks,
Philippe∏

I am not sure I can follow 100%.
Is it a layout that you only want to contain text?
If so, go to setup mode and unassign all the flows from the layout.

Thanks Sascha, that’s not really what I want. because if I remove the flow from the layout, it is not visible for the musician.
What I expect to have is a flow with only text instructions to the musician…
Philippe

Hi Philippe !
I don’t think you can have a “text only” flow. This is not how the flows were implemented. You’ll have to resort to a workaround (and I don’t have a clear idea to suggest you now).
Maybe you could elaborate what you are trying to do in deeper details, and someone will find another way to achieve it?

Thanks Marc.
I am composing a piece for a dance show. I want to connect the music flows to the dance flows. Some dance flows just need music improvisation regarding some text instructions. As the dance part is still in progress, I have to move and reorder the music flows very often…

Another question could be : how to hide all the systems of a flow and only keep the text associated to those systems.
Philippe

I think I would go for another approach. If you can allow each flow starting on a new page, I would just create a master page with no music frame but just a text frame, and then apply master page changes in engrave mode as necessary.

alternatively, if you want to have multiple flows on one page, I would resize the music frames at the appropriate pages and add the text frame needed manually. But be aware that this creates a page override and is recommended to be done this way when everything else is set.

I suspect the idea for a “Text Flow” is to add it to multiple instruments where it might appear on different pages, making overrides unwieldy.
I’ve often wondered whether using some small music symbol almost as a graphic logo would “hold” the flow into which one could also pour text; but I have never tried this.

One bar of music for a single line percussion instrument is fairly unobtrusive. Change the clef to “invisible”, hide the bar rest, change the final barline to invisible, and you just have a horizontal line across the page.

That’s not perfect, but at least you can shuffle the flows as you want and the text attached to that bar will end up on the right page.

If you aren’t using Tacets anywhere else in the project, it’s pretty easy to tell the relevant layouts to show Tacets with “Tacet text” set to a single empty space (and borders turned off). That way there’s nothing to hide - you just assign the relevant flow to the layout but not to the players.

Off the top of my head, you might be better off not constructing this as a flow at all, though, and just building a Master Page that you insert as necessary in each Layout.

Leo, the OP wants to have some text in this “flow” so it will automatically move to the right place in the layout when the flows are shuffled. With no players in a flow, there is nowhere to attach the text to.

(And if you don’t want the word “Tacet” to appear for a flow with no players, there is a Layout Option to suppress it without editing the Tacet text.)

Rob, you’ve missed my point. I’m suggesting that you could put the text in a flow heading, preferably using tokens. If you want it to appear in the layout at all, you need the Tacet turned on.

Here, for instance, Tracks 37 and 38 (which may or may not be flows 37 and 38) are actual flows, but contain no music. There are hidden tacets and the titles and cues are inserted automatically using tokens.

There is a limit to how large Flow Headings can be, I believe, and there’s no way of linking a text frame to a specific flow. This may be a non starter.

Only other way would be to add it as a word document to the final PDF - of course assuming you have a PDF editor. That would have to be in post-production though - might make it not worth that option.

Brian
Composer
Rehab from Sibelius as of Dorico 2
WIndows 10 pro

I believe you thought about suggesting it, but the words “flow heading” don’t appear anywhere in the thread before your latest post!

That’s a valid point, Rob, though I could’ve sworn you knew me well enough to know what I’m thinking :wink:

Brian, if you imagine a film orchestra and all the separate parts to which such text might have to be added in a PDF, you’ll probably see why Philippe is looking for a different option that could more easily automate the process.

Good thought, though, for some cases in which text needs to be added to a smaller number of parts.

My (probably dodgy) solution is to have one instrument for this, and place a big white box over it. At least for me, it’s way useful to have these as flows.

Maybe so, but my ESP coprocessor slows down in hot weather :wink:

Yikes - and I’ve seen the score to Vertigo so I should have caught that. Duly noted.

B

Wouldn’t it be an option to use flow headers for the text? These flow headers could then be inserted into layouts (players) individually and the text would appear at the beginning of the next flow.

Hi everyone,
Thank for all your answer, I tried every suggestion and I chose to use the PianoLeo option using hidden Tacets and just assigning the relevant flow to the layout but not to the players.

That’s not a very intuitive way but it’s a cool workaround.
Thanks.
Philippe