Recitative

I’m doing a project that requires having a large amount of lyrics (many words) attached to a single large-value note. Is there a way to do that with using lyrics, or will I need to use another kind of text? Is it possible to have multiple syllables or words attached to one note without using elision symbols?

You can use Shift-Alt-Space to write multiple words in lyrics mode without advancing to the next note.

Thanks for your help!

Out of curiosity (looking to you Daniel) is there any reason this requires TWO modifiers? Is it possible to change it to simply “alt+space”? Just curious if there was a reason behind the double modifiers. I’m guessing there is… (perhaps alt+space is used elsewhere in the program and I just don’t know it.)

Yes, Alt+Space is a reserved shortcut on Windows to open a window’s system menu. I believe the shortcut we’ve ended up with is something of a standard and is also used by e.g. Microsoft Word to insert a non-breaking space.

I understand Romano’s question, because, and I think it is a topic that we have discussed last year, on mac the non breakable space is alt+space. And since we use it a lot, I admit I would have loved to keep that keystrokes since it can be done with only one hand and is everywhere else (on mac).

I have a short piece that has sections of recitative. It was created in Sibelius. In making this, when there are several words on one note I used a breve and pulled the following barline to the right until they all fitted in the bar. After exporting from Sibelius as a Music XML file, and importing into Dorico, the recitative bars are not long enought to contain the words. How does one fix this (without starting over)?

David

I’d say the procedure is exactly the same as you did in Sibelius: acting upon note spacing, in Engrave mode.

I agree with LSalgueiro.
You could also input system breaks in order to have less bars per system (hence more space for each bar).

There are also lots of options in the panel for centring lyrics etc. some of which will automatically lengthen the bar to fit.
Also I’ve found that sometimes moving the lyric manually a very tiny amount leads to the bar auto-lengthening.
I’ve been writing Anglican chant in Dorico.

I had set this (see image) in Sibelius, and I’m trying to replicate it in Dorico. After typing multiple words to a note (using Shift-Alt-Space), I then thought that setting the option ‘syllable type’ to ‘end’ in Engrave mode would line up the first word of the row with the note, but I think I’ve misunderstood. I can grab and move the word-row to the correct place in Engrave, but then I have to move the next notehead and everything following it rightwards out of the way. I’m not doing it right, am I?

The option you want is “Lyric text alignment” set to Left.

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I’m sooooo glad I asked! Thank you!!

The Introductory Rites 12th Jan 2019_2023.dorico (1.1 MB)
I have just started using Dorico at V5 . 1 . 10. I am importing lots of xml files from Sibelius and Finale, in which I manually changed note spacing and system length to look better for recitative. Please could I check that this post is still true for V5? Is there any way to undo manual note spaces imported from another program and any way to make the bar length right for left-aligned lyrics which I have imported? I have set up several flows in frames, as I thought that this might help with spacing and text between systems. Thank you! Chloe

Hi Chloe – I believe note spacing alterations do not transfer via XML at all.

Thanks for posting the project. I don’t think multiple frames are particularly useful here. This can all be done in one music frame. In Dorico, like Sibelius, you can manually indent systems from the right individually.

Some years ago Daniel made a very thorough tutorial that I think should help with some aspects of this:

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Thank you for your reply, @Mark_Johnson. My question is further to the question by @david-p from May 2018. I have a lot of files which were originally created in Sibelius and Finale for a Mass, with various sections, passages of coloured text between systems and recitative long notes. I have tried selecting the “make space for lyrics” in Layout Options. I do like the excellent Tutorial by Daniel Spreadbury. When I import music, I can left-align the lyrics but I wondered if there was any way to automatically make the bars the correct length for imported lyrics. I understand if this is not currently possible.

One can compress the “Lord Jesus Christ” melisma by making the stemless notes 16ths. Changing the time signature to unmeasured (X) makes the unmeasured measures simpler to manage.

Thank you for your suggestion, @Derrek. As I understand, to import bars with long lyrics to each note/recitative it is necessary to make manual readjustment of bar length and note spacing measurements for each system.

That is probably true, but the line I was looking at also seems to have too much text to fit into one system regardless, unless the size (or compression) of the lyrics themselves are made smaller.

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This has possibly already occurred to you but have you looked at the musicxml import settings in preferences?

Turning all these off might allow Dorico to do a better job of spacing.
Not sure if it would help you in your case.

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