During the first three weeks of May I typeset my first project in Dorico (having used Finale since 2000 and manuscript since around 1950 [I’m 85]). Since 22 May I’ve been revising and tinkering, more with the layout and engraving than with the music. The project is quite modest: around 400 bars, on nearly 50 pages of A4, for two singers, one actor and one pianist.
This morning’s post brought me three copies printed and coil bound. As I expected, I instantly noticed one or two things that would need to be adjusted. Most unexpected was an unintended subsidiary title. The actual title is She, to Him, I … I to Her, but below that there was the subsidiary title 1. She to Him. I wonder what I did to add that? Anyway, it has now been deleted.
More important, is that there seems to be a lot more vertical space than I would have achieved in Finale. Pages 39-49 of the piece are a straightforward ‘art song’ for mezzo and piano which has three systems to a page. In Finale, I’m nearly sure that I would have had four systems to a page. I’m not blaming Dorico for this, but rather various default(?) settings which I expect to learn to adjust as necessary.
Can somebody please give me some (gentle) guidance as to where I should start with adjusting settings, such as those for vertical spacing?
This may be more for future projects than for the current one, which for now can survive with the spacing it has. A well known singers’ pianist on receiving a PDF of it has responded to my worries thus: “The typesetting looks absolutely fine to me!”
Apart from the vertical spacing and a few other bits and pieces, just about everything seems likely to be less bothersome than in Finale, once I have become more used to Dorico. eg No need to be too worried about the behaviour of slurs, very few if any collisions to look for, and - heavens! - cautionary accidentals that behave sensibly and even take into account the two staves of a piano part - plus a very great deal more.
What did catch me out somewhat, in this my first proper foray into using Dorico, was the desirability of leaving the software to get on with its own layout devices, when possible. Because of the particular nature of this current piece (spoken narrations et al) there were some things I did have to override, but many fewer than I might have found with Finale.
