Re: Arranging lyrics between 2 staves

[David Sumbler]

On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 11:43 -0500, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> > 
> > The piece I am setting can be sung by a baritone or by a mezzo-
> > soprano. 
> >  In the score, therefore, there are 2 vocal staves, one for each of
> > the
> > alternative voices.  The staves contain identical music apart from
> > an
> > octave diffence in pitch and different clefs.
> Aside: Have you thought about just having one staff, and putting the
> clef modifier (i.e., subscript 8) in parentheses?

That would be a possibility, I suppose, but as the piece was originally
for baritone, notated therefore in bass clef, I would prefer to keep
that notation intact.

> > It seems sensible to print the words only once, mid-way between the
> > 2
> > staves.  But if the words are aligned to the notes in the upper
> > stave
> > they appear too high.  If they are aligned to the music in the
> > lower
> > stave the result is more acceptable, although the words are perhaps
> > a
> > little lower than one would wish.
> You need to set the #'staff-affinity (and, optionally, adjust the
> spacing parameters). For example:
> 
> \version "2.19.48"
> \language "english"
> 
> \layout {
>   \context {
>     \Lyrics
>     \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = #CENTER
>     \override VerticalAxisGroup.nonstaff-relatedstaff-spacing.padding 
> = #1.5
>   }
> }
> 
> \new StaffGroup <<
>   \new Staff
>     \new Voice = "upper" { \clef "bass" g2 g a1 g2 g a1 \bar  "|." }
>   \new Lyrics \lyricsto "upper" { Words just right! Words just right!
> }
>   \new Staff = "lower" { \clef "bass" a,2 a, g,1 a,2 a, g,1 }
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> Hope that helps!
> Kieren.

Help?  It certainly does.  That seems to work perfectly.  Nevertheless,
I'll experiment a bit with the 2 VerticalAxisGroup settings, to see if
I can understand the effect each of them has, for my greater
understanding!

Thank you so much for your quick reply and a complete solution.

David