Does anyone have suggestions on style–and tips for using Dorico to implement that style–in setting Anglican chant?
I maintain a set of six liturgy books (28-40 pp. apiece) that my church uses throughout the year. In each season we sing an Anglican chant after communion–currently, for instance, in the season after Pentecost we will chant the Benedictus.
I have had Dorico for two years, and am finally forcing myself to take the plunge to learn to use the tool by committing to do a project: a new edition of our Pentecost liturgy, planned for 44 pages, to debut…well, when I master Dorico sufficiently to say that I’m done.
I’m making progress–and posting questions here. I’m feeling much more confident about setting most of the service music, and any hymn. But I’m looking at the chants, and feeling nervous.
Here’s a brief example:
Thoughts, advice on how to do better? And how to do this better in Dorico?
Thanks!
It’s not completely about chant, but an essential resource for dealing with this kind of Anglican idiom, is Daniel Spreadbury’s article “Typesetting choral Preces and Responses in Dorico.” It’s truly the most helpful guide I’ve seen to actually going through the steps of creating a multipart choral score in Dorico.
Take a look at the attached simple project which shows a psalm set in the way I’m used to seeing them, i.e. with the chant written out once and the pointing then provided below. It may be a helpful guide to give you some ideas about how to approach this kind of thing. I’m happy to answer any specific questions you might have, but don’t have time to write a fully general guide to creating projects like this at the moment, I’m afraid.
stainer-psalm86.dorico.zip (189 KB)
Daniel, that’s some lovely psalm setting.
To the OP: Daniel’s blog does describe very well how to deal with all the words in the recitation. (Though in your example, surely bar 5, at the least, would have opposing stems?)