Into a template or Onto a template

​I’ve written at some length about designing notation templates (read some previous blog posts here), but now I want to explore some general guidelines on using your templates for various projects.  But wait, you say, I thought the whole idea of creating a template was to use it for every project, in the same way, every time.  Or is this some strange grammatical puzzle?  I promise you, it’s not a trick of English grammar (there are enough of those already), or that I’ve led you astray on my template recommendations.  Let’s dive in.

What really affects the way in which you use a template starts with two factors:

1) Where is the project starting? (There’s a sub-question here about what role you have in the project, but I’ll cover that another time.)

2) What notation program are you using?

The first question is concerned with what format the notation starts.  I know a lot of composers still begin their works with pencil and staff paper, sketching out ideas and melodies here.   If this is where you are starting, whether you are the composer, arranger, orchestrator, or copyist, then the answer to the second question of which notation software you use is a personal preference. Any full-featured notation software will do, and if you have a template all set and ready to go, just start inputting your notes and you’re off and running.  If you are starting your sketches in a notation program from the beginning, then the process is the same.  Starting the notation process here is an example of working “in” a template, meaning you have created the template to be an environment in which you work, and everything started and finished in this template will now have all the characteristics and functions you want since you began the process in the template. 

Where things become less straightforward is a situation like this: what if you are given the task of updating an existing notation file?  In this case, the notation may come to you in various conditions and needs to be revised and modified.  This is primarily where I start on a project; a composer, arranger, orchestrator, etc., has a piece of music that needs to be cleaned up and formatted properly for the specific use.  If this is where you are starting, reinputting the entire piece by hand would likely be impractical or impossible given the time or budgetary constraints of the project.  This is where the question of whether you rework the piece “into” your template or impose “onto” the piece the settings from your template comes in play.

For a Finale user, this is a job for copying the original piece into your template.  For shame, you say!  Once I copy this other piece into my Finale template, the articulations may not match the settings in the template, and the expressions are all wrong and using the wrong settings!  How is working in a template helpful when what you’ve copied into it looks wrong?  Relax, breathe… Finale’s expression menu and articulation design menu make it easy (to a degree) to correct this.  For example, let’s say you have a lot of different text directions, like pizz. or arco, that are not using the correct font style or placement now that you’ve copied them into the template.  All you need to do is go into the expression menu, find all the different texts you copied in, move them to the correct expression category that has the settings you want, and then click the dropdown menu to reset font and position, and then you’re done.  Go out of the expression tool, highlight the staves you want, and go to utilities/change/expressions… and hit ok to reset the position of all the expressions.  Now, these will use the correct fonts and have the correct spacing as if you had created them in the correct expression category to begin with. 

You can also do a similar method in the articulation menu.  If there is a staccato marking from the old file that isn’t the one you want to use, simply select it, delete it, and then from the pop-up menu, select replace and find the correct one you had in the template already, hit ok, and then all occurrences of that articulation will be the one you originally designed in the template.  Go back out of the articulation tool, highlight the staves you want, go to utilities/change/articulations, reset the position, and everything will now appear as you originally intended.

If you are a Sibelius user, the concept of copying into a template also works, but the process of resetting different elements changes.  Once you’ve copied in the notation, highlight what you want, and go to the appearance tab and select reset design and reset position.  These should generally update everything to look and behave like the settings you already have in the template.  If you have lots of custom font styles for symbols and other elements, it will be a longer process to get those looking exactly as you intended, but it’s still possible.  A new and often better method is to import an old file into your template using the file/import function.  From this menu, you can assign the existing staves to the corresponding instruments in your template and keep the settings from your template (make sure to uncheck settings that import the house style from the old file), and away you go.  There is still a good bit of updating to do after this, but this is a very useful method.

Sibelius also offers a way to impose your template settings onto an existing file by using a house style.  First, go to your template file, export the house style, and then import it into the file you are updating.  Once you do this, follow that reset procedure from above.  A house style will take settings and presets from your template file and superimpose them onto another file, making the settings in this old file the same (largely) as your template.  In my experience, this isn’t a foolproof method, but it does work and can be a great way to import all the various settings from a template to a new file without having to go line by line and find them all and change them.

Where Finale uses a “copy into a template” workflow, and Sibelius can use either a “copy into a template” or “impose settings from a template onto a new file” option, Dorico squarely falls in the onto camp.  The limitations and imperfections of the import house style function in Sibelius are completely absent from Dorico.   Dorico’s library manager feature is incredibly powerful and user-friendly.  First, open your template and navigate to Library> Export Library. Save the file. 
Now go to the piece you’re updating and go to library/library manager.  From her,e either select that library file or drag the icon of your Dorico template file into this menu.  Dorico will now have a long list of all the various settings in the correct file that don’t match the library from your template.  Simply click to change all the settings you want (or click the major categories of notation options, engraving options, layout options, etc.) and Dorico will take care of the rest.  It’s very effective, and I’ve found it to be seamless in almost all instances I’ve used it.  Next, you can also import page template sets in engrave mode (again, export these from your template), and you can use them in this file.  Now, all the engraving, notation, and layout settings and your page templates are the same in the old file as your template file.

Ok, I know that was a lot to digest, but as you can see, depending on which notation software you are using and where the project begins can change how you use your template.  Remember, your templates aren’t just a file; they should contain concepts, workflows, and ideas that can be used on any file.  This makes your template more useful and flexible, saving you time and headaches. 

Got questions, contact me and I’d be happy to help.