On Mon 10 Feb 2025 at 12:00:23 (+0000), Raphael Mankin wrote:
> On 10/02/2025 10:17, Timothy Lanfear wrote:
> > On 09/02/2025 10:09, Raphael Mankin wrote:
> > > Attached is a MWE.
> > >
> > > I tried using explicit syllable lengths, but it appears that
> > > they were ignored. So writing "rhythm4" or "jer8 -- "ky8" does
> > > nothing.
> > >
> > > Switching the order of the voices in << ... >> made no
> > > difference; it always aligned to the shorter notes. So " << c4
> > > \\ {a8 a8 } >>" or "<< {a8 a8 } \\ c4 >>" yielded the same
> > > result.
> > >
> > > I have not played with more complicated rhythms, e.g.
> > > tuplets. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
> > >
> > > For the simple cases I need atm it seems that a spacer "_" is
> > > sufficient. Beyond that, it is guess and fiddle.
> I was, and remain, chary of using explicit syllable lengths as I then
> have to add them to the whole of the lyric. That quickly gets
> tedious.
I would agree. IIRC the only occasion I've used them was to create
a song containing a repeat that could be unfolded, correctly producing
both score and midi output.
> And I also take Xavier's point about not using "<< ... \\ ... >>",
> but I am trying to find a minimum effort solution, not a most general,
> perfect one.
Yes, generally not worth using when lyrics are involved.
> I think that for cases where the differences between verses are
> extensive I would use a NullVoice for the variants. But most cases
> that I have seen so far have only isolated variations, so using a
> spacer "_" is simplest.
The NullVoice is certainly more flexible than aligning to the Staff,
as it can handle more than one staff, for typesetting part songs etc.
But you shouldn't use underscores unless you really /want/ to create
a melisma, because that's what you'll get, regardless. Substituting
longer syllables for jerky shows this up in the attached. And if you
use code that automatically adds lyric extenders (a great timesaver),
you'll get spurious extenders appearing where you've used underscores.
If you want to move a centered lyric, and here you can see that the
centered syllable in the second line is not particularly pretty,
I would use LyricText.self-alignment-X rather than an underscore.
I define three presets that save a lot of typing, but you can always
be more precise when needed, by specifying a #number instead of left/right.
ll = \lyricmode { \once \override LyricText.self-alignment-X = #LEFT }
cc = \lyricmode { \once \override LyricText.self-alignment-X = #CENTER }
rr = \lyricmode { \once \override LyricText.self-alignment-X = #RIGHT }
Cheers,
David.
\version "2.24.3"
\language "english"
\header {
title = "Variant Rhythms"
}
global = {
\key c \major
\time 4/4
\partial 4
}
chordNames = \chordmode {
\global
% Chords follow here.
}
melody = \relative c'' {
\global
% Music follows here.
c4 |
c4 c << c4 \\ {a8 a8 } >> c4 |
c4 c8 c c4
}
verseA = \lyricmode {
% Lyrics follow here.
Verse with smooth rhythm _ words
And stac -- ca -- to
}
nbsp = \markup \char ##x00A0
versea = \lyricmode {
% Lyrics follow here.
Verse with smooth rhythm \nbsp words
And stac -- ca -- to
}
verseB = \lyricmode {
% Lyrics follow here.
Verse with short squaitch’d mouth’d words
And stac -- ca -- to
}
\score {
<<
\new ChordNames \chordNames
\new Staff { \melody }
\addlyrics { \verseA }
\addlyrics { \versea }
\addlyrics { \verseB }
>>
\layout { }
}
