I engraved a piece for narrator and piano/orchestra before in Dorico, but it was a lot of hassle with the layout, so I was wondering, now I am starting a new piece like this, what would be the best approach?
The piece will have blocks of narration and blocks of piano. Should I create separate flows for both and after that add them as frames on the pages?
I use the following very usefull features to notate dialogs or narrative in my musicals scores:
You can input lyrics at any rhythmic position within a bar.
Lyrics are not necessarily bounded to a note but to a rhythmic position.
It means you can write lyrics anywhere and because it is connected to a bar it stays exactly where you wrote it.
you can enter a space and create multi syllable lyrics:
Press Shift-Alt-Space to enter multiple words on a single note.
It means you can write almost any kind of text instead of usual one sillabble lyric.
You cannot create a carriage return but you can use lyric line number:
Press Down Arrow to change the lyric line number.
This way you can write a text over several lines.
Additionally you can easily assign an italic style to any lyric in the properties panel.
Thanks, very nice tips. I am looking into the general layout at the moment. I added most of the music, every piece on its own flow. So now I have to add the text. None of the text needs to be connected to music though, it’s one or the other. It’s not an extended work. I wrote the music for 2 plays for the final exams of the school I am working as pianist and are now turning this into a work for younger classes, so they can use it in a very simplified version. So the layout will be:
music
text
music
text etc.
So this is something I still don’t really understand. All the flows are ready, each having its own musical piece. Now I want to start add and insert text, using text frames.
On page one I drag the 1st music from down to make room for the first text frame, and this happens:
The flow header is being repeated below the flow, why is this?
It looks like your music frame continues off the page. Did you move or resize the music frame?
It could be that Dorico tries to put the next flow in the music frame, but no music fits the page and the flowtitle gets confused because there’s only 1 flow (the previous one) on the page, so it uses that one.
Yes, I dragged the music from down to make place for a text frame. I was able to select that extra text frame and delete it. It looked like they were separate text frames, not sure why they were created.
If you have literal chunks of alternating text and music (ie- they don’t perform at the same time, or if they do, it is up to the performers’ discretion) then you could input your music as flows and input your lyrics as part of the flow information in the info panes and then activate flow headers to display the text before the music automatically. You’d just have to edit your flow header master format.
(In other words, I put your lyrics in the “flowlyricist” pane or something similar and use that token.)
Here’s an example screenshot and project file to show what I mean. Again, this only works if the text and music alternates (strictly) but it does work and things flow automatically.
fake dorico project with text blurbs.dorico.zip (307 KB)
