Lyrics in middle of grand staff

• Oct 26, 2018 - 22:02

I would like to be able to easily/automatically set lyrics to go to the middle of a grand staff (lyrics above the bass clef notes and below the treble clef).

This is a standard format for published music. Here is an example from Hal Leonard: https://goo.gl/images/Xko8f6, Faber: https://goo.gl/images/sFdsAk, and someone's self-published music: https://www.music-for-music-teachers.com/support-files/all-the-pretty-l…

I teach multiple instruments and also need it to convert correctly from single staff music to grand staff when using the split staff function, using ctrl-shift arrows to change the staff a note is in, and when transposing.


Comments

There are a few ways of doing this. First thing is to create a blank score and adjust your stave and all other features and then save this as a Template.

If you are entering lyrics based on notes in the treble stave you can adjust Style >General >Page >Lyrics Top Margin to a value such as 6.0. If you are entering on notes in the bass stave then set the value to -9.0 or thereabouts.

If you want to be able to enter lyrics on both staves and have the text appear between them then you can set different text values for odd and even lyrics. You do this from Style >Text Lyrics Odd Lines and >>Lyrics Even Lines repectively. You could then enter lyrics on the treble stave set at 6.0 or so (entered on Line 1 of lyrics) and the bass set at -10.0 or whatever (press Enter to take the lyrics down to Line 2 - an even line).

In reply to by underquark

Yeah, there are a couple workarounds (I've been putting invisible notes in the treble clef to attach lyrics to), but none of them are easy or convenient workarounds.

And more importantly, none of them convert from a single staff lead sheet. I want to be able to use the split staff function. If I do it now, it puts the bass clef lyrics below the bass clef. I want the to be able to use the split staff function and keep the lyrics in the middle.

In reply to by _Fox_

I suggest you try a nightly build of MuseScore 3 (or wait for the "alpha 2" version recently mentioned as coming soon) to see if the controls there for placing things above the staff work well enough for you. In theory, it seems one should be able to use the "X" command to flip the lower staff staff lyrics above, but when I try it, it flips all lyrics; not seeing an obvious way to do it one staff at a time.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I am doing a webinar on how to use Musescore for a few thousand people. It is just a simple course to enter music into a Piano Marvel competition for piano teachers to start implementing composition in their studios. We really do need the lyrics to be in the center of the grand staff when the melody alternates between the treble and bass clef. It is fairly simple in Finale, but this is a Musescore course:) I will await the alpha 2 version to show people how to do that. Thanks.

In reply to by aarongarner

This discussion was about version 3.0 which was still in the alpha release 2 years ago. We are now in version 3.5.1 (about to be 3.5.2) and the position of lyrics works better than it did then, but there is no automated facility to line up the lyrics between the two staves when some come from the top staff and others from the bottom.

You can select all of the lyrics on the bottom staff and press x to put them above the staff. They will line up on their own staff but you may need to make some adjustments for them to line up with the other staff. A recent method was added for selecting all of the lyrics on a staff. Click the first lyric, then shift+click the last lyrics and they will all be selected.

In reply to by mike320

Thanks for the reply! I've been doing alright by copying the staff before I do the split staff. Then pasting it back into the treble clef. Then selecting by range to make the duplicate notes invisible. The only hard part is getting all of the stems selected so they are also invisible.

In reply to by _Fox_

I'm not sure how you're pasting, but if what you paste is the only thing in the voice, you can use the filter selector (F6) uncheck lyrics and keep only that voice checked, you can turn all of the notes, stems and flags invisible at once by pressing v or using the inspector by clicking the set invisible button.

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