Hi Abraham, (Great to see you on-list again!)
> It's been some time since I've posted anything here, but a recent project has > caused me to jump back into creating scores. I'm working on a relatively > simple choral piece with piano accompaniment and seeing all the ways the > lyric syllables mess up the horizontal spacing is... tolerable, but somewhat > irritating. Do not get me started… This is something I started working with Janek on over a decade ago, and — as someone who deals almost exclusively with sung text (art song, choral music, musicals, operas, pop songs, etc.), this is The Thorn™. > I'm not asking for perfect note spacing preservation, just less bad. Longer > syllables/words are, of course, more problematic (like in the attached > picture). > > In my head, I envision a springs-and-rods type of function for the lyric's > attachment (self-alignment-X?) that increases in "stretchability" as the > syllable length gets larger so that it is more likely to move than others. > Thus, enabling the notes to be more correctly spaced. > > Thoughts? I'm afraid my own Scheme skills aren't up to the task for this. I'm > also fully aware that I can adjust this manually at the problematic places. > I'd like to avoid that if possible, but will do that if needed. Please let's talk with some Great Developers, figure out a good implementation, and get the ball [re]rolling! I'm sure some of Janek's work is applicable (at least conceptually, if not actualy code). Best, Kieren.
