Re: fighting with lyrics

[David Rogers]

* Benjamin Peterson <address@hidden> [2011-03-21 01:38]:

> mike <at> apollinemike.com <mike <at> apollinemike.com> writes:
> > Hey Ben,
>
> Hi Mike,
> Thanks for the comments.
>
> > 1)In vocal scores, the hyphens between lyrics
> > disappear when the spacing
> > is tight.
>
> Wow, really? In my G. Schirmer Barber Collected Songs, all the words
> are hyphenated.

All the hyphens are "still there" in your Lilypond score, and if you
find a way to spread out the spacing a bit, they will magically appear
when needed. They've only been temporarily compressed out of view
because there isn't room for them at the current tightness of spacing.
That is indeed standard practice for all publishers (leave out the
hyphen if putting it in would make a mess.)


> > 2)The lagging you are taking about is also standard practice
> > - I don't know
> > of any publishers off the top of my head
> > that left-justify their lyrics.
>
> I think you're absolutely right about this. I'm not a singer,
> so I just want the
> score to be legible to them.

There is a (slightly hack-ish to type but comes out looking nice) way to
get the notes aligned on the first vowel of the syllable instead of
centred. There is also the option (cleaner to code) of having each
syllable moved (say for example) 30 percent to the right. However, no
solution is perfect.  Scores that are really well done have each
syllable "eyeballed" to a pleasing and/or acceptable distance from _all_
other nearby objects - I haven't seen any computer program capable of
automating that process.  (Doesn't mean it hasn't been done.)

--
David