Lyrics for two voices on the same stave.

• Feb 7, 2019 - 22:08

In Musescore 3, how do you put some lyrics above the stave when you add a voice? In the attached example, you can see that the stave starts off containing one voice and adds a second at bar 3. The voices then become one again in the last bar. Where the voices split, I'd like all the first voice lyrics above the stave. These are the syllables in red.

I managed it, but only by the clunky method of selecting those syllables, bringing up the Inspector, deselecting "Automatic placement" (which can affect the placement of other elements elsewhere), and raising the selected syllables manually using the vertical offset feature.

In the Inspector, I see the "Placement" option under the "Lyrics" heading. That would make things much easier if I could make it apply only to the selected syllables, but I can't - when I use it, it raises the whole line of lyrics for the whole voice, including the second when it enters, above the stave. Is there any way I can keep the general placement of the lyrics below the stave, but change the placement of only the selected syllables using the "Placement" feature under the "Lyrics" heading?


Comments

In reply to by mike320

Oh dear - I see. OK, a suggestion from that thread leads to a clunky workaround, the results of which I've attached. I hope I've remembered this procedure correctly:

  1. Enter the lyrics for the unison and SECOND voices as normal. (The default placement is below the notes.)
  2. Prepare to enter a second verse by selecting the first note and pressing CTRL + L.
  3. Using the Inspector, place the lyrics for this "verse" above the notes.
  4. Enter the lyrics for the unison and FIRST voices as normal.
  5. Select all the redundant syllables from the top line of words and make them invisible using the Inspector. (Depending on context, selecting the same voice on the same stave and system might speed things up a little.)

Now you have the unison and second parts below the line as "Verse 1" and the first part only as "Verse 2". Well, I did warn you it was clunky - but it's workable, unless you're transcribing Mahler's 8th, in which case you're in for a severe bout of RSI. Anyone got any better ideas?

In reply to by mike320

Sorry - that backup score thing seems to happen all the time when I save Musescore files. I've attached (hopefully!) the proper version.

Unfortunately I just tried that workaround on the actual score I was working on, and it didn't work. Putting Verse 2 "above" put all the lyrics to all the parts throughout the score above the notes. Playing around with "even" and "odd" lyric lines doesn't seem to help, either. Probably me forgetting something basic, but I can't figure out why it works in my attached test but not in the actual piece.

In reply to by Anselm Kersten

The problem is that you are using voices sometimes and chords sometimes. If you use a chord, only enter the lyrics once, If you use voices, because the rhythms are different like measure 3, put each voices lyrics in. In my changes to your score I selected a voice 2 lyric and changed the placement to above and all moved.

Once the bug #282629: Lyrics can not be be placed above/below staff individally, only the whole verse is fixed, you will need to use select>more... to select all lyrics in the same voice. It will make this easier because you will be ale to move individual lyrics.

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