Tunes and Dances

Hello,

I wonder if I’m trying to get Dorico to do something it’s not designed for. I play in a dance band playing ceildhs and Scottish dances etc. I have a hundred plus tunes in Sibelius which I turn into PNG files then put them together into sets for particular dances - each dance will comprise usually of at least four tunes. This is OK as it goes, but can be a pain when we decide to change the tunes for a particular dance and I was wondering if I could use Dorico to simplify the process. Could I create a flow for each tune (that would be over a hundred flows) then create individual layouts in Engrave that would bring in selected flows (tunes) to create a dance? or am I confusing what the layout function is?

Your combined help / ideas would be much appreciated.

Peter H

Yes, this is possible. If you want multiple tunes per page, you will have to manually lay them out in Engrave mode. If one tune per page is OK, auto layout will work fine.

Manually tweaking the layout for a hundred short flows is a lot of work, though. How about creating different master pages as templates for 2 tunes on a page, 3 tunes on a page and 4 tunes on a page and apply them individually to every page depending on which one fits best for the content?

Hum… Did you try to create a flow per tune wanted (ex. 3 flows for 3 tunes, etc.). You can easily transpose using Shift+I
And then, in the Engrave mode, you can create your own Master Pages (one with 2 tunes, one with 3 tunes, one with 4 tunes, etc. as wanted).
In each Master Page you can then create for exemple 2 big or 4 little Music Frame /page (for 2 tunes), 3 big or 6 little Music Frame /pages (for 3 tunes), etc., and select for each Music Frame the flows you want to show in it.
Is it what you where talking about ? Does it help you ?

EDIT : Well I correct, it should be better to create different Layouts (one per tune) and then edit you Master Page with as many Music Frame you want. I think it’s better cause it will be easier to compare them (one Layout with 2 tunes, an other with 3 tunes, etc.) than changing of Master Page in the same Layout.

Thanks to you all for your feedback. I will try out your various suggestions.

I’m getting there, slowly… I have created a master page called Individual Tunes which has one tune per page formatted in the style I would like if I were only printing out one single tune. Each of the tunes is an individual flow. I have created a master page called Individual Dances which will contain as many tunes as is needed for the dance. Now, if I create a page at the end of the Pages and use the Individual Dances master page, I can specify which tune goes where - however…

I created a text box above each of the individual music boxes with the token {@FlowTitle@} but the token only brings in the details of the first flow. Is there a way of using tokens to refer to different flows on one page?

thanks in advance

{@flow1title@}
{@flow2title@}
etc.