On Aug 4, 2013 5:30 PM, "Trevor Daniels" <address@hidden> wrote:
Me too. As a singer it looks exactly what I would expect. That's the
way all vocal music is laid out - with syllables left-aligned on tied
and slurred notes, wherever they appear.
How is it done in jazz lead sheets?
My situation here, where the tied note at the end of a system is of a
short duration, is likely to be unusual in classical (common-practice)
music. I did a quick peek through the opening movement of BWV 80 and
it is as you say: left-aligned for ties and slurs. But all of those
cases are at least quarter notes in a texture full of 8th notes; note
columns in other parts push the tied note leftward, away from the
system margin, without considering the width of the lyric syllable. On
top of that, the old Bach-Gesellschaft edition uses a narrow text
font, so even if Bach had tied an 8th note across a barline, the text
wouldn't take up much horizontal space anyway.
In my case, it's an end-of-the-bar syncopation (common in jazz, not so
much in classical songs), and Lilypond's text font is a bit on the
wide side. On *two* systems, this occurs with the syllable "through,"
as attached, giving 3 narrow 8th note columns and one which is
comparatively... huge. It may be "correct" by classical standards, but
it is ugly.
Tell you what... if you can find a lead sheet of, say, Cole Porter or
Gershwin or Hoagy Carmichael with a last-note syncopation of this sort
(really, anticipating a downbeat accent by part of the beat) where
there is such a large space between a short note and the barline *and*
the text is left aligned,* then I'll let it go. Until then, I have a
feeling this is a rule that was made for classical music (where my
case is rare) and it may not be optimal for another style where my
case is common.
* It wouldn't surprise me if engravers would rather fudge the system
breaks to avoid this, instead of printing something hideous. So it may
be hard to find. Maybe my solution in the end should be to use a
narrower text font and adjust system breaks where needed.