Entering Lyrics
I'm using Musescore 2.0 on Windows XP SP3.
Normally when you select a Soprano/Alto note to enter lyrics the words will appear between the treble and bass staff and when you select Tenor/Bass note the lyrics will appear below the system, ie. below the bass staff.
Sometimes I need the lyrics above the treble staff for the Soprano voice. Similarly, for the Tenor, I need the lyrics above the Bass staff. Kindly advise how to achieve this.
In the attached score I entered the lyrics as usual and then physically moved each word to the position required (in the Chorus section).
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Walking_In_The_King's_Highway.mscz | 21.64 KB |
Comments
You could tweka the styles for odd vs. even lyrics.
But under this is an area where MuseScore has potential for improvement ;-)
In reply to You could tweka the styles by Jojo-Schmitz
Thanks. I do hope that Musescore will take this up and provide this facility.
Looks like you tried to move each syllable one by one, probably by hand using drag. There are definitely much better ways than that. For example, try entering the lyrics for the soprano part into voice 1, alto in voice 2, then right click one of the soprano lyrics, use Select / More, Same voice, then use the Vertical offset in the Inspector to move them all above the staff at once. Or, if you want some of the voice 1 notes to remain below the staff, you can first make a range selection of the measures where you want the syllables moved, then foloow the process above but also check the "In selection" box in the selection dialog. Or just use ctrl+click to select the syllables you want.
In any case, the idea: first select the syllables you want to move, then use the Inspector to move them all together. Way easier and more accurate than dragging individually.
In reply to Looks like you tried to move by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc, thanks for your description here. Even though it is over 2 years old, it still works. I have had problems trying to use Styles for the Chorus lyrics and making an offset. Sometimes I have 3 or more Verses and need to position the Chorus mid-way between the staves to keep appearances nice. But creating a new Style doesn't drag the hyphens with the words to the right position.
Second option, I don't see how to make a Range Selection of just the lyrics.
The frustration with your suggested ctrl+click selection method is every individual word or part needs to be clicked and if that goes over a couple of pages, the result is problematic. Perhaps a Shift+click might be in release 3.0?
In reply to Hi Marc, thanks for your… by RogerHallett
Right-click/Select/More.../Same verse
In reply to Hi Marc, thanks for your… by RogerHallett
Hyphens should follow style if you use the offset field and leave the alignment fields alone. If you have trouble getting it to work, feel free to attach your score so we can see what is going wrong.
There are lots of ways of selecting lyrics; ctrl+click is indeed just for a few. If you want to select the all, right click one Select / All Similar Elements. If you want just a single verse, Select / More / Same verse. If you just want ones in a given range of measures, select the range of measures first, then Select / All Similar Elements in Range Selection. And so on.
In reply to Hyphens should follow style… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, Marc. I ended up creating a new phantom lyrics line from the start of the chorus by selecting the note, CTRL L, Enter three times (to create blank text lines), and started typing. I then simply selected the lyrics line and moved the whole line into position vertically to solve the problem. Thanks again for your suggestions.
In reply to Thanks, Marc. I ended up… by RogerHallett
None of that should have been needed, though. And you certainly don't want to have to do all that every time you want to move lyrics. As I suggested earlier, if you attach your score, I am sure we can show what is going wrong and how to solve it with the need for such laborious workarounds.
In reply to None of that should have… by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc, it is not really a laborious task. Quite quick in fact to select the measures then select text in the range, then click on the offset in Inspector. My only regret is that I can't use larger font or bold which I could do if it was a reliable Style. The two files attached: the one with (test) shows what I did to try the Style, but it left the hyphens up on line 1 of the lyrics. The other file (without test), is my final which I used a simple offset on the selected lyrics. Only problem with that is when I might start a chorus mid-measure. However, that will only be one or two words which can be offset as required.
Now I only have two lines of verse here. However, for people doing four or five verses of lyrics, with varying chorus lines throughout a much larger work (such as you might get in a stage Musical), having a reliable way to insert choruses and have them subject to a Style, would be excellent.
In reply to Hi Marc, it is not really a… by RogerHallett
It is already the case that you can define your own custom style for any or all lyrics you like, and that style can define the position, size, and font.
The reason your "test" version of the score does not work correctly with respect to hyphens is what I said before - you changed the alignment of the lyrics in the style. This does not work. You have to leave them set as "baseline" alignment. If you want the style to include a change of position, use the "Vertical offset". Then no further manual adjustments are needed.
Of course, applying an offset by manually adjusting position is easy enough too, given the method I described for quickly selecting all lyrics in a given range. it's the whole process of creating "phantom" lines and hitting enter three times that I was suggesting was completely unnecessary. But as you say, if you also want different font characteristics, you really should use a style anyhow.
In reply to It is already the case that… by Marc Sabatella
Hello Marc,
Once again, thank you for your most constructive comments. I will certainly have another attempt at doing it via Styles as I agree that is the best.