Lyrics in MID file have several layers of multiplicates stacked on top of one another

• May 19, 2020 - 08:32

I opened a MIDI file in Musescore. I created a part with the melody line that has the lyrics so I could add chord symbols to create a lead sheet of the arrangement for my own use.

I wanted to adjust the positioning of some of the lyrics and make some small edits, but what initially appeared to be a single line of lyrics in bold was actually several layers of multiplicate lyrics stacked on top of one another. I have to select each layer and move/delete it one by one. This is tedious.

My current workaround is deleting all of the lyrics and manually re-inputting them, but I want to know if there is a better workaround, or a way to prevent this from happening somehow.

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IMG_20200519_145635.jpg 10.46 KB

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• May 20, 2020 - 02:26

I just replicated the issue by opening the file directly in Musescore, as I first did to create a score. The issue happens immediately upon opening this file in Musescore, without any previoius steps. I only uploaded the MIDI file and not the score because at this point there is virtually no difference between them. I'm running Musescore 3.4.2.9788 on Windows 10.

Attachment Size
pharrell_williamshappy.mid 82.47 KB

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• May 20, 2020 - 10:08

Confirmed. Please open an issue in the issue tracker for this (attach the mid file there as well).

I've discovered it creates as many lyrics onto that staff as chords existing across all melody instruments. The "worst" case is the lyric "Be" in m18, which is created 8 times.

There is a fairly easy way to fix this in MuseScore though:
1. Right-click a lyrics and pick "Select → Select All Similar Elements in Staff"
2. In the Inspector change the verse dropdown value by clicking the up arrow of the field. Warning: this will take a long time! (easily more than a minute)
3. Once the first verse change is processed, keep pressing the up arrow till you reach verse 8. As MuseScore can only process a single lyric/voice correctly, it'll nicely spread out all instances across the different verses.
4. Right-click a lyric from verse 8 (bottom line, which is the "lyrics-complete" line)
5. This time choose Select → More…
6. In the popup, tick the checkbox for "same verse" and choose "remove from selection" as the action, then confirm the popup
7. Press Del
8. Once more, select all lyrics by right-clicking one and use "Select All Similar Elements in Staff"
9. Now press the Reset arrow to the right of the verse field in the Inspector. It'll reset those lyrics back to verse 1

Another way to work around this at import time is to make sure that those lyrics all end up at the instrument they should've been.
In the import panel, use the dropdown to select the lyrics for all instruments that aren't percussion. That way the lyrics will all end up on the separate staves instead of on the first staff with lyrics.
You can then again use the right-click select methods to easily delete all lyrics except on the staves where you want them.

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