Dorico: How to Create a "Large Bar Number Staff"—a Common Feature in Film Scoring Templates

tarokoike
Feb 11
4 min read

When I was working for a Finale distributor in Japan, I wrote an article explaining how to recreate a film scoring Finale template I learned while attending Berklee College of Music in the current version of Finale.

Unfortunately, this article is no longer available as the domestic distributorship agreement for Finale has ended, but it featured a dedicated staff for large bar numbers, which were highly visible to the conductor, along with a similarly large time signature.

In short words, this dedicated staff for large bar numbers featured a staff with only the two outer staff lines (top and bottom) and bar numbers in a larger font size centered in the middle of that two-line staff.

If you were to recreate them in Dorico, Dorico's large time signature feature is far more flexible and user-friendly than Finale's, making it easy to recreate.

However, because Dorico does not have the ability to freely draw staff lines like Finale, I had long assumed that it was impossible to recreate this large staff dedicated to bar numbers.

However, the other day, I suddenly became curious about this and posted about it on the Steinberg Forum, where I learned that it's actually possible to do this in Dorico using a different approach than Finale. Based on that information, I figured out the following method to make it.

(1) To create a staff dedicated to bar numbers

Go to Setup mode and add a single player.
Right-click the newly created "Empty-handed Playert" and select "Create Empty Kit",
In the "Edit Percussion Kit" dialog that opens, click the "+" button in the lower left and add two instruments.
Go to the "Grid" tab in the upper left, select the name of the top instrument, and change the "Gap" value from 2 (the default) to 4.
Click "Apply" and "Close" to close the "Edit Percussion Kit" dialog. (This will display a two-line staff with bar rests, percussion clefs, and two instrument names, all the same staff height as a regular staff.)
Select the bar rest in the first bar, press Shift + M, enter a parenthesized time signature (e.g., "(4/4)"), click the "Single" icon on the right side of the pop-up window, and press Return. (This will hide the time signature only for the selected staff.)
Switch to Write mode, select all bar rests, turn on the "General > Color" switch on the left side of the lower zone's properties, click the color palette icon immediately to the right, and change the opacity from 100% (default) to 0% in the "Color" dialog that appears. (This will visually hide the selected bar rests.)
Select an instrument name and press return key to open the "Edit Instruments Names" dialog and delete all instrument names. (If characters such as 1 or 2 remain, enter a half-width space in the instrument name.)
Select "Library Menu > Engraving Options > Barlines > Design," change the "Minimum barline protrusion:" value from 1 space (default) to 0, and click the "Apply" button to close the dialog.

(2) To display bar numbers larger:

Select "Library Menu > Paragraph Styles > Bar Numbers (Score)," and change the font size from 9.0 pt (default) to approximately 18.0 pt.
In "Library Menu > Layout Options > Bar Numbers," select "Every Bar" for frequency and "Centered on bar" for horizontal position.
Similarly, in "Bar Numbers > Position," make sure only "Percussion" is selected and all "Placement relative to system" options are unchecked.
Set appropriate values for "Minimum distance from staff: " and "Minimum distance from other items: " (usually around -4 to -5).
In "Show/Hide," check the following four items.
Show bar numbers at rehearsal marks
Show bar numbers at time signatures shown above the staff
Show first bar number when shown every bar
Show bar number at start of system for bar split over break

You can also hide the clef by selecting the first bar and entering "invisible" with Shift+C, or by selecting "Clefs > Other Clefs" in the right zone and selecting an invisible clef, but doing so will cause the key signature to appear on the bar number staff when transposing, so it's probably best to leave it as the default percussion clef. There's no real problem with this in terms of appearance or functionality.

Note that this method does not apply a 0% opacity setting to bar rests where bars are added or inserted; you'll need to manually set them to 0% opacity again.

When doing this, it may sometimes be difficult to select only the bar rests in the specified range. In that case, you can select the rests including the specified range, change the opacity to a value other than 0%, and then set it back to 0% to set the opacity of all bar rests in the selected range to 0%.

In film scoring recording sessions involving dozens of performers, overtime can directly lead to increased costs due to overtime payments for labor and studio rentals, so it is extremely important to produce a performance of the required quality within the limited time.

Film scoring scores, honed in such hard environments, incorporate a variety of unique know-how to ensure the desired results. This knowledge should be of great help not only in film scoring, but also in other performance settings, such as general orchestras and wind band concerts.

There are various other ways to display bar numbers with high visibility. In Dorico, the easiest way is probably to place large bar numbers surrounded by rectangles, and this is the method used in the "Film Orchestra" template included with Dorico.

When placing a staff dedicated to bar numbers, you can also use a combination of bar numbers surrounded by rectangles, or you can deliberately place bar numbers without surrounding them with any shapes; which one you use will depend on the case and your preference.

In conjunction with writing this article, I actually created these templates.

These templates are available for free download from the links below, so I hope you will find them useful in your actual performances.

v1: Bar numbers are placed at the top and bottom of the score without any shapes.

v2: Bar numbers are placed within a rectangular band, above the strings (Finale style).

v3: Bar numbers are placed within individual rectangular boxes, above the strings.

(I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Steinberg Forum members Jesele and Zalde for their valuable advice in creating the template introduced in this article.)