Re: lyrics: multiple words to one note?

[Arvid Grøtting]

address@hidden (Robinson P. Tryon 03) writes:

> I'm typesetting my college's alma mater (copy from 1908 :-), and I'm
> facing a little problem with the lyrics.
>
> The piece is for TTBB + Piano, and there are three stanzas of lyrics
> between a treble and bass clef (tenors and basses).

Ah, TTBB!  My kind of music!  ;-)

> The problem is that the lyrics do not match up completely with any
> of the parts.  The melody is in the 2nd tenor, and in one measure
> they hold a dotted half note while everyone else sings "(give a
> rouse,)" on shorter notes.  In a later measure, the 2nd tenor is the
> only part singing "For the sons of ... ".

Ah.  This is a very normal occurrence in choral music typeset on two
staves.  (When typeset on one staff per voice, lyrics is usually
printed underneath each voice and this problem goes away.)

I'll try giving some answers based on my experience with typesetting
some (mostly TTBB) music over the years:

> Reading the documentation on lyrics, it seems that you can (could?)
> specify duration for lyrics:
>
> - - - - - - - - - -
> For example,
>
>        \lyrics { Twin-4 kle4 twin- kle litt- le star2 }
> - - - - - - - - - -
>
> Could I do something like that here?

Sure, but...

> (Hopefully just for the couple of measures where it doesn't line up
> quite right, if that's possible)

...you can't easily have it both ways.  Not in any way that I've found
yet, anyway.

> My other idea (which seems like a hack) was to create an invisible
> staff with the correct rythm (g8. g16 g4 g g g8 g ....),

or a voice with the correct rythm on spacer notes (s8. s16 s4 s s s8 s
...)

> and then
> link the lyrics to that staff instead of Tenor 2 (or another part).

Sure, as long as you want the lyrics in the same place verically.
You could also try splitting the tenor 2 voice at the place where this
occurs, and there only, thus (warning: untested![1]):

  % actual tenor 2 music
  c4 d e2 |
  % lyrics follow the spacer notes (?)
  << { s8. s16 s4 s }
       f2. r4 } >> |
  % actual tenor 2 continues here
  g4 a b c |

Often, when lyrics split up, you want extra lyrics above the tenor
staff or below the bass staff, and things get a bit more complicated.
I haven't quite worked out a particularily good way to type up that,
yet.

> My last idea was to take the non-tenor-2 part out of the lyrics (it
> only occurs in one place), and do something like:
>
> _\markup { \column { < "first verse"  "second verse" "third verse" > } }
>
> (in the appropriate place)
>
> Although that would probably look about as good as if I used a
> sharpie on my computer screen.. :P

Yes, that's a problem with that.

> Actually I just had a thought -- I could just switch the notes for
> tenor 1/tenor 2 for that measure.  A little cleanup with \stemUp
> \stemDown could make it look right, but then the lyrics would be
> correctly appended.  Ugly hack internally, but unless anyone has a
> better suggestion?  :-)

It may mess with your MIDI output, too, if you have per-voice MIDI
output, but that may not be a concern for you.

Yet another technique is to do this:

foo = \lyrics {
    foo bar baz
    "gazonk.  And that other stuff in the other voices."
    et ce -- te -- ra.
}

...but that will not line up well horizontally, to put it mildly.

There are probably other ways that involve messing with properties,
voice names et cetera.


[1] I'm not sitting next to a computer with any recent version of
lilypond right now; my idea may not work at all.
-- 

Arvid