How do enter lyrics BEFORE I add notes?
My music instructor is teaching me through an innovative approach.
- Take a song, I know well.
- Write the lyrics out below the stave, spacing them well apart.
- Now write the notes in, initially with no bar lines, just with whole notes. At this stage get the pitch right.
- Edit, turning notes into halves, quarters, or 8th as needed.
Having the lyrics helps you keep your place, he says.
But at this time the only way I can figure out how to get the lyrics in, either requires that I put in dummies in the right beat, which is backwards to what my teacher wants.
Is there a better way to do this?
What I'd like to do:
- Chop the system at the number of bars in the line.
- Enter the whole line in syllables
- Enter the notes as beats instead of whole notes.
- Lyrics match up as I move things around.
My first assignment is Scarborough Fair.
-
Under the first stave I want to write
Are you going to Scar-bor-ough Fair
-
Next lines each in their own system
Par-sley, Sage, Rose-ma-ry and Thyme
Re-mem-ber me to one who once lived there
She was once a true love of mine
Then as I add notes, the notes match up.
Not dedicated to this way of doing things, but I want to follow my teacher's instrructions as closely as I can.
Comments
Does the instructor have software that can do this? If so, they should be giving you at least hints on how to do it. As it is, this is backwards from how MuseScore works. I think it can be done. But it is not easy.
In reply to Does the instructor have… by bobjp
Combination of wetware and hardware.
* Take a sheet of 12 stave manuscript paper.
* Write out the lyrics, one line per system
* Draw in the notes. TRy to do this without playing them. Do a line. Then check on keyboard.
I've use an eraser more in the last 2 days than I have in the last 6 months.
The instructor is in his late 70's. For his own compositions, he normally turns hand written manuscripts to someone else to run through Sibelius. That said, he is enthusiastic about my vision (I want to not just to play, but to improvise, arrange, and compose) He refuses to get half hour lessons. My first lesson was nominally an hour. 1:40 later.... He charges $50 per lesson. Well worth it. My poor little brain was reeling when I was done.
(He complained that he found the Long and McQuade manuscript pads too crowded with 12 staves per page. A couple hours (I'm rusty) with adobe illustrator produced 6, 8, staves/page, and 4 grand staves per page, so that he can print what he needs on his printer.)
He's also dismissive of Czerny, Hanlon, and the Suzuki method, saying (and I put these words into his mouth, but he didn't deny...). "Squeeze every bit of joy out of the music...." Told me of a Suzuki student who practiced 3 notes from a Bach minuet 99 times a day for a week.
In reply to Combination of wetware and… by sgbotsford
Sorry. I'm going to come right out and say it. I would be tempted to run away from this guy as quick as i could. What instrument do you want to play? Are you trying to learn music theory?
I'm in my 70's and I gave up on pencil and paper in 2007 when I bought Sibelius. Age is no excuse for not learning something new. In fact, studies show that the older we get, the more new things we need to learn to keep our brains working. He should know that 1. manuscript paper is easy to make any way you want. And 2. manuscript paper is a waste of resources.
I also compose. I can't imagine wasting time with staff paper. Holy cow. Sure, everyone has to work the way they feel they must. But I prefer my electric lights and my computer.
My remarks are probably out of line. I know. Again, sorry.
Lyrics are normally associated with notes, and could get messed up during note editing, so to get around that try this...
In a separate text file write the properly hyphenated lyrics.
For example:
Are you go-ing to Scar-bor-ough fair? Par-sley sage rose-ma-ry and thyme. Re-mem-ber me to one who once lived there... etc.
Then copy/paste each sentence as staff text (not lyrics) above the staves, using spaces to "roughly" stretch the sentence across the measures. This is used only as a temporary means to "help you keep your place".
After you enter all the notes and are satisfied with the correct rhythms, copy (to the clipboard) those properly hyphenated lyrics from that text file and paste it as lyrics below the staff.
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/lyrics#lyrics-from-clipboard
for the streamlined way to paste lyrics from the clipboard.
Last step is to delete the (temporary) staff text.
![lyrics.png]( "lyrics.png")
So, 4 steps are shown here: