In La Traviata, a letter is read to the music in the final act. In Ken Burn's Civil War series, a love letter from Sullivan Balleau to his wife is read while the Ashoken Farewell is in the background (snippet attached).
Is there a way this can be included in a midi file so something like the van Basco program can display the text in time to the music? TIA
I've done this with a monolog read out whilst the piano is playing (the green eye of the little yellow god) BUT it is tricky to do.
You have to attach lyrics to rests in time to the metre of the spoken work. In other words, the text is put in as normal lyrics but you have a staff that is specifically for this purpose and then you put in rests for the correct timing that you want the words. Remember that you can force lyrics to rests and you can also use the underscore to join words such that two words will attach to one rest. This "one_eyed" would appear as this "one eyed" but would attach to a single rest.
This takes much patience to get it right - then just when you think you have got it correct, an export to midi type 0 for Van Basco reveals that the ends of some phrases are clipped off because of the circumstance of the words and rests, and so you then have to make adjustments for this.
So - yes it is possible, no not easily. Trial and error and patience - unless someone knows a better way !
Creating a a new staff for rests and lyrics definitely looks like the way to go, Thanks!
If you import any MIDI file that has lyrics, you will get an example of what Richard describes (lyrics attached in a separate, dedicated staff).
This technique is much easier if you add the lyrics first, then place notes and rests onto the staff, changing their durations to achieve the desired time placement of the lyrics. You can mute the staff to prevent the notes from playing back, and you can use the NWC2 notehead feature to make these notes show as X notes (if you want to make the score look good, too).
See also:
FAQ - Getting started with lyrics
http://ntworthy.com/composer/faq/15.htm
FAQ - How do I add lyrics to MIDI files?
http://ntworthy.com/composer/faq/87.htm