SATB score writing

[flyingtadpole]

I'm in the middle of scoring large slabs of an opera and its 300 pages, not 200... Here's how I handle the problem. bear in mind I'm writing and scoring in English, so the words have to be both heard and understood (!) Because of that little issue (!) there aren't many places where there's a need for 4 sets of lyric lines for the chorus. If it's that bad, I'll treat SATB as if they were four additional soloists and give each their own line.

But generally: I try for a single lyric line: professional singers are capable of reading where their notes are . (Although I really wish Composer had a simple means for handling stems in both directions on a shared/single pitch. ) Where additional help is needed to split between SA and TB, I will give TB its own lyric line below the TB stave. Often, there just needs to be a hint to a part, and that can be done simply by identifying ("sops.") or, a little more complicated, making use of the multi-verse lyric feature, just being careful to place lyric words in the right place.

I have yet to resort to using the Free-text solution. Perhaps this means my music is insufficiently complex!