Lyrics above the staff (barbershop)

• May 4, 2025 - 22:48

I have notes in voices 1 and 2. Although most of the lyrics are attached to the voice 2 notes, and are below the staff, I also need to be able to attach lyrics to voice one, and have them appear above the staff. I know about using the x key to move them above.

So, selected a note in v1, CMD-L, and entered the first lyric. I left the lyric tool, selected that syllable, and tapped the x to move it up. Fine, so far. I went back to that first syllable, selected it, and moved on to the next lyric. It was at a different level than the first one. All succeeding lyrics went straight on. I've checked it a couple of times. Any ideas why, and if it can be corrected?

Screenshot 2025-05-04 at 2.47.55 PM.jpg


Comments

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I'm finding that, whenever I have lyrics above the first staff (and only on the first staff!) when I enter a hyphen at the end of the first note, the cursor jumps down about 2 cm (into the notes) and will not accept further input. If I enter a space or underscore at the end of that first note it behaves normally and hyphens behave normally on any note but the first. If I start entry on the second note, it works normally as well.

Something is funny about a lyric on that first note, when it is Above the staff.

In fiddling with this, I discovered that if I started further along in the lyrics and deleted each syllable, moving backwards, when I got to the first syllable and deleted it, the cursor and entry point jumped a small distance UP on the page (approximately where OP's first "Dream-" syllable was) and, once it is there, lyric entry works normally, even if I delete it completely and start over. Now I can't get the first issue to recur.

Indeed, now I can't get it to occur even in a new score. The odd behavior happened in two subsequent scores, but once I did the "trick" of deleting each syllable, moving backwards through the lyric, now it doesn't happen at all any more, even in new scores ... I think.

I must have done something subtly different that first time.

I am able to just drag the word "dream" down next to "in". No idea if it will stay there.

When I start a new score with your choice of clefs, I can enter your notes and lyrics. They all line up like they are supposed to. Have you set up the score with some special settings?

In reply to by indian4rider

That's the "right" way to do it. OP simply had something unusual happen when they did it. It's not really accurate to call it "flip stems" since it flips anything (almost anything?) that can be flipped. Lyrics, dynamics, other text, ornaments, articulations, fermata, stems, etc.

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