Aligning Lyric text

• Jan 23, 2016 - 15:22

i have read the handbook, but can't find the information i am looking for.

i have short tunes with lyric text used. When i inputted the text i wanted it to to line up with notes of the melody which was in the LH as well as RH ( words to a piano piece on a grand stave )

So i had to do all the lyrics in RH first, then again for LH. These lyrics were placed under the LH notes.

I then selected all LH lyrics and moved up so it aligned with RH text

The problem is that the text is uneven between the staves. When i have selected all similar elements and tried to use the offset in the inspector, there is nothing i can see that puts all text on the same vertical alignment. In Sibelius the text is snapped or magnetized to align. Is there anything similar in Musescore?!

Thanks


Comments

right click on a syllable: Select / More;
in the dialog box select Same Stave, then uses Inspector.
Attach your score here, if you want.

Thank you
I selected all the text then clicked snap to horizontal grid in inspector and it didn't move anything......is there something i am doing incorrectly?

In reply to by Shoichi

Hello Shoichi
Thank you, but i still have not been able to do it

I clicked the button you highlighted with a red square also set vertical and horizontal grid to 0.00. Both made it worse.

Is it poss to send step by step instructions please?!

I have a whole books worth of lyrics to align, so would be very grateful!

In reply to by Shoichi

Thank you - you are doing really well, i understand you!

I realise the problem is that when i use vertical offset snap it does align words perfectly, but back to where they were when i first inputted them ( so lyrics attached to LH notes go down below the bass stave )

Ho hum, never mind, i don't see there is a way of doing this

In reply to by Shoichi

Right click on a syllable: Select> More;
Select Same stave (and / or own voice etc.) Click on OK;
When the syllables you need are highlighted (blue) uses Inspector to change the (numeric) value of Horizontal / Vertical Offset using the two arrows "up/down" or writing a number.
You should see the changes immediately.

Thanks- Control R is a great solution. Why didn't i think of that!
I don't know what number to put in for the offset, so i think i will stick to the control R method which is a great improvement

Thank you so much for your help and time

Normally, when arranging music for piano with lyrics, you would *not* duplicate the lyrics below both staves. It would *only* go between the staves, or below a third staff placed *above* the piano staves. The only time you'd put it below both staves is if it were not in fact piano music but instead an arrangement for multiple voices.

So it isn't clear to me what you are actually trying to do or asking for. It might be there is a very simple and direct way to get whatever it is that you want. If you post the score you are having problems with and described precisely what the problem is, we might be able to offer better solutions. Generally speaking, you should never need to manually adjust syllables - the default posiution is correct according to standard music engraving standards. Ctrl+R is only needed to remove anymanual adjustment you applied. Whch is to say, Ctrl+R really just returns things to the default - where they would have been had you not applied the manual adjustment in the first place. So applying manual adjustment followed by Ctrl+R is the same as doing nothing.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you Marc.

The problem is this:

I am inputting lyrics. i am using a piano grand stave for a melody that moves between the LH notes in the bass clef and the RH notes in the treble clef. It is fine if the lyrics are assigned to to the treble clef notes as they are written in under the RH notes.

If the lyrics occur on LH notes ( written in the bass clef ) they automatically are put in UNDER the bass clef stave. I cannot find a way -to stop them automatically occurring below the bass stave. I would like the lyric written for bass notes to appear above the bass stave (ie:between the staves) as they do when inputting from treble notes

This is why i have had to manually move these up so all lyrics are inbetween the RH and LH staves

I can't think of any other way to be clearer - does this make it any more sense?!

Any advice if there is an easy solution, gratefully accepted!

In reply to by brightstar

I think I understand, but the best way to be clear is to post the actual scorew you are having trouble with, using the "File attachments" link right below where you type your reply.

If I *am* udnerstanding correctly, then it seems you are trying to do something I don't normally ever see notated in published music. if you have published examples you are basing your notation on, posting a pciture of one of them might help me understand better too.

Anyhow, the norm in published music is for lyrics to accompany a single staff, not to accompanying piano music. That is, a third staff would be included for the lyrics. If I were trying to do what I think you are describing, I'd maybe try adding invisible notes to the top staff to attach my lyrics to where necessary. or else I'd create a new text style "Lyrics above" and assign it to the lyrics that are attached to the bottom staff. but mostly I'd be questioning whether this was really the best way to notate it.

In reply to by brightstar

A line break says, "break the line here" - that is, don't put any *more* measures on this line. But it doesn't force MuseScore to squeeze any measures closer together. So if only three measures fit on the line given your current settings, adding a line break after the fourth won't magically change that fact. Just like if you are typing in a word processor, and there is room for 80 characters on a line, and you put a line break after the 104th character, it's not goign to squeeze those 104 chracters on a single line - it's still going to fit only the 80 characters.

If you want to fit more measures on a line than otherwise would given given your current settings, then you need to tell MsueScore to squeeze the notes closer together - that's done by selecitng the measures and going to Layout / Decrease Stretch (or using the shortcut "{"_ as many times as necessary. Or you can change your settings - things like the overall music size (Layout / Page Settings / Staff space) or the overall music space (Style / General / Measure / Music spacing).

It may not be mainstream but if you want to do it that way, then fine. One way to achieve what you want is thus:

Go to Menu ->Style ->General ->Page and set Lyrics bottom margin to 2.0
Go to Menu ->Style ->Text ->Lyrics Odd Lines and set it to 7.5
Now set Lyrics Even Lines to -9.2 (negative 9.2)

Enter the notes as normal and then start entering the lyrics for the treble stave as normal - so far, so mainstream.

Now for the trick - Start entering the lyrics for the bass stave but instead of just the usual click on the note, [Ctrl]l for lyrics and start typing, PRESS [Enter] before you type a lyric to take the lyrics entry "down" to the next line. Since this means you are now entering the lyrics on an even-numbered line and since you have told MuseScore to offset the even number lyric lines by a negative value, your lyrics now magically appear between the staves.

Naturally, you may need to experiment a bit with the exact figures to get it looking just how you want it.

Attachment Size
Odd_Lyrics.mscz 10.54 KB

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