Lyrics Command
Lyrics are added to a staff using this command. Each staff can be configured for up to 8 lyric lines, each of which will be automatically aligned to the notes in the staff. You can quickly access the lyric editor dialog, where lyrics are added, by pressing Ctrl+L while in the editor. The lyrics are added within the lyric editor dialog using 9 tabbed property sections.
Configuring Lyrics:
The first property section, the Configuration tab, is used to define the lyric Line Count that should be associated with the active staff. A separate tab is then available for each of the lyric lines that have been defined for the staff. You can control how lyric syllables are aligned with notes on the staff using the Align Syllable Using option. You can control where the lyrics are placed vertically in the staff using the Alignment and Offset placement options.
Authoring Lyrics:
The remaining property sections, Lyric 1 through 8, are used to enter the actual lyrics. The font used to display and edit the lyrics is the same as that used when printing, but is always displayed at a size of 12 points.
The lyrics that you add here are not assigned to the staff until you press the OK button. This is true for all of the lyric tabs. None of them are assigned to the staff until you exit the dialog by pressing the OK button. Note that the OK button can be reached by pressing the Tab key until the button receives the input focus. The Enter key is used for carriage returns within each lyric edit control, so it cannot be used to close the dialog box while entering lyric text.
When entering lyrics, you should separate each audible syllable with one of the following separators:
- a hyphen
The hyphen is used to separate syllables within a word. Each syllable will be associated with a new note on the staff. The hyphen will automatically be centered between the syllables on the staff.
- a space
A space is used to separate words within a phrase.
- a carriage return
A carriage return is used to start a new phrase, but generally the next lyric line is related to the previous line, as if they are part of a single verse or section.
- two carriage returns
Two carriage returns together creates a new paragraph, section, or verse within the current lyric. Additional carriage returns (greater than 2 in a row) will be ignored by NoteWorthy Composer. They will not exist when the lyric is opened again for edit.
Use of these separator conventions may become more important in later upgrades that may allow "fake book" arrangements.
If you want to include one or more spaces into a single syllable (or utterance), you can use the underscore character ("_") to accomplish this. Any underscores in a lyric are displayed as spaces in the score. Using the underscore, you can have multiple words or syllables associated with a single note event on the score. You can also add space onto the front or at the end of a syllable in order to even out the notation display in the score. You can also use notation properties to force notes and rests to either attach to a lyric syllable, or specifically not attach to a lyric syllable.
Lyric Alignment on the Staff:
When displaying lyrics, each syllable is automatically aligned to the next note in the score. The following rules apply to lyric association to notes in the staff:
- Only notes that are not the beneficiary of a slur or tie will be associated with a lyric syllable.
- Split stem chords will associate a lyric syllable with the chord component with the smaller duration.
- A chord which contains one or more notes that are tied to previous notes will not be associated with a lyric syllable.
- Rests are ignored when formatting a lyric line.
- Chords which include both a rest and a chord will have an associated lyric syllable. In other words, a chord that is comprised of a rest and a note is considered to be an audible utterance. If you do not wish to attribute a word or syllable to a chord like this, then insert an underscore separated by spaces (or hyphens) in the lyric body at the corresponding syllable position.
Authoring Hints:
It does not matter which order you decide to use when composing a song which includes lyrics. You can author the lyrics first, and then begin to place notes in the staff, or you can add the lyric lines after the notes have been placed. Any lyric utterance which occurs beyond the current duration of the staff is retained and will be displayed as soon as new notes are added to the staff.
If the lyrics are not aligning properly to tied or slurred note groupings, then hit the F9 key to initiate a refresh of the current score (see Refresh Score). This should enable the slur groups to re-synchronize and work correctly.
While in the lyric editor, you can copy a lyric line via the clipboard using standard cut and copy keystrokes. Specifically:
- holding the shift key down will select characters in the lyric
- pressing Ctrl+X will cut the selected characters to the clipboard
- pressing Ctrl+C will copy the selected characters to the clipboard
- pressing Ctrl+V will paste text into the lyric line, if text is already in the clipboard
See Also
