Can I insert lyrics but without the note?

• Jul 22, 2017 - 22:38

Hi,

I am new to the software. I am trying to transcribe songs and what I want to do is just have the lyrics at the bottom and chords at the top and I don't need the note.

However I found that I couldn't simply type in lyrics because it needs to be associated with a note.

Can you advise is there a work around for this?

Thanks

Xiang


Comments

If you don't need notes, don't use LYRICS but use simple TEXT. You write in each measure the part of Text you need. If the text is too high ,when finish , you put all the text in one time lower with the Inspector. You can also make diseapear the music lignes , if you don't need.

But , I think , it is sad to use Muse Score to only write Lyrics and Chords, you can use WORD or other. The only good thing in your case, is , you can, after, change all your chords, up or down.

In reply to by jeetee

Hello,

I'm a newbie at MuseScore edition and a piano beginner, trying to create a score for the piano part of a song. I'd like to insert its lyrics, ideally between the right and left hand staves ("up" and "down" staves). These lyrics don't "follow" the notes of either hand on the piano. But I'd still like them to "respect" their real rhythm.

Should I:
- add a new "Voice" stave, add its notes and then the associated lyrics?
In which case, is it possible to hide the notes without hiding the lyrics?
Is it also possible to put the lyrics between the two piano staves? In the instruments pane, if I move the Voice stave up or down, it goes respectively above or below the piano staves, not in-between.
- add a "voice" to the right piano hand? This feels like a bad idea. :)
- use another option?

(I've not read anything about digging old posts. Please advise if there is a better way or place to post this.)

Thank you!

In reply to by jeetee

Wow, that was fast. Thanks! :)
Sorry, not a native English-speaker either:
By "voice 4 notes", you mean the 4th voice among the 4 available voices per stave?
Also, what's the purpose of making these notes stemless? A musical or aesthetic consideration, or...?

In the add-a-Voice-instrument option, is it possible to hide the stave without hiding the lyrics?
It'd make listening to the score easier to understand, and may have other advantages I'm not yet aware of. Also feels "cleaner". :)
If I ever want to show the lyrics' notes, it'd also make the score clearer.
If the hide-stave-but-not-lyrics is not possible, would it be possible to easily copy all notes from the piano "voice 4" to a the Voice instrument stave?

In reply to by msGuillaume

By "voice 4 notes", you mean the 4th voice among the 4 available voices per stave?
Yes

stemless
Because I know stems can influence the layout algorithm, so making them stemless should minimize their impact on layout. Although so should making them invisible, so stemless might not be required.

Add an extra instrument option
Logically it indeed feels a lot cleaner, but layoutwise I think you'll need quite some trickery to both make that staff completely invisible as well as forcing its lyrics to appear between the staves of another instrument.

If the hide-stave-but-not-lyrics is not possible, would it be possible to easily copy all notes from the piano "voice 4" to a the Voice instrument stave?
That is an easy one indeed. The process would be as follows:
1. Add the vocal instrument
2. Select the piano staff containing the voice 4 hidden notes (should be the treble staff).
3. Open the selection filter (F6) and uncheck "voice 1"
4. Copy
5. Re-check "voice 1" in the selection filter
6. Click at the start of the vocal instrument
7. Paste
8. Select the vocal instrument
9. Switch voices 1-4
10. Right-click a voice 4 rest in the vocal staff: Select -> All Similar Elements
11. Delete
12. Probably make the notation visible again :)

In reply to by jeetee

Great, I have a working solution with the last option. Thank you. :)

About the extra instrument option:
Logically it indeed feels a lot cleaner, but layoutwise I think you'll need quite some trickery to both make that staff completely invisible as well as forcing its lyrics to appear between the staves of another instrument.
What if I'm not uptight about the lyrics position? Would it be tricky as well to hide the voice staff without hiding its lyrics? That would make the lyrics appear above the piano staves. Wouldn't be so bad. :)

In reply to by msGuillaume

Turns out it was easier than I thought, see attached score with voice and piano instruments.

Start with entering notes/lyrics on each instrument as if you're going for a normal score. Then open up the staff properties for the voice staff and uncheck the showing of clef, time signatures, barlines. Do check hiding the system barline and invisible staff lines options. Hit the advanced style properties buttons to disable showing key signatures, ledger lines and mark the staff stemless.
I've also removed the long and short instrument names to ensure no influence at layout here.

Next is making the vocal staff overlay the piano treble stave.
First select it completely, open the selection filter (F6) and uncheck Lyrics, then use the inspector (F8) to turn everything invisible. If so desired, now press the notes button and turn off playback for them.
Don't forget to re-enable Lyrics in the selection filter.

Finally re-select the vocal staff completely and apply the fixed spacer from the palette; it'll attach at each measure, so all systems will be affected regardless of the system breaks or where they wrap.
Right-click a single one of them, and choose Select → All similar elements and change the height to -4 sp in the inspector.

Attachment Size
235081_fake lyrics_staff.mscz 7.28 KB

For Muse Score 3: This is an older post, but I discovered a way to do this that is not mentioned in the other reply. You can add text to a Rest via the same method as adding lyrics to a Note (left click on note/rest --> Ctrl + L). What happens for me is the lyric(s) are inserted lower than the other lyrics attached to notes. To remedy this: left click on the lyric in question --> go to the Inspector tab and unclick the box for "Automatic placement". This should allow for much more freedom of placement. It still seems to snap in place somewhat, but with much more placement options.

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