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Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Hi,  Sometimes in extra verses you may get an extra word or so in some bars, how do add the note so it plays only for that verse? eg

Teach me to be    4 notes
You Com-fort the home-less   6 notes

the first line is from verse 1  the second line is from verse 2

Thanks

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #1 –
If there are 6 notes in the staff, then the first verse would generally use underscores to skip the two notes that apply to the second verse.

See also:

FAQ - Getting started with lyrics
http://ntworthy.com/composer/faq/15.htm

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #2 –
Hi, thanks for your reply.  There are only 4 notes in the bar the extra two notes for the second verse would only be played for the second verse.  So how do I set the notes to play only for the second verse.  Or should I just write the second verse with separate music
Thanks

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #3 –
Quote from: dakota –
Hi, thanks for your reply.  There are only 4 notes in the bar the extra two notes for the second verse would only be played for the second verse.  So how do I set the notes to play only for the second verse.

You can separate words to appear on the same syllable with an underscore.  To use your text:
"You Comfort the home_less".  "Comfort" doesn't need to be hyphenated here and "home less" will appear in one syllable but separated as shown.

An alternative is to provide for six syllables but only use four by inserting "stand alone" underscores:
"Teach me _ to be _".

HTH
Since 1998

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #4 –
I think it all depends on what you want to achieve.

You could have one staff with 4 notes shown both verses - but mute that staff and have a hidden staff that plays each verse separately. (Because it's hidden, you do not have to put the repeat in).
You can then have 4 notes played the for the first verse and 6 notes played for the second verse.

I think I would be tempted to use this - but on the muted visual staff, I would put the 4 notes stem up, but at the two places where there have to be additional notes, make them a chord with a stem down and another stem down. you could even put a text bracket around each of the second notes to indicate a variation.

If I had access to nwc at the moment, I'd do a demo for you - but post back here if you need to see what I mean and I'll do an example when I get home tonight.
 
 
Rich.

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #5 –
Just out of curiousity, how do you write a vocal line with extra notes for extra syllables on the repeat, without showing the notes in the staff?  Do you mark them with parentheses so the singer knows not to sing the extra notes the first time? 

(In band music we would normally see the first time tacet, and play upon the repeat.  Usually the copyist just writes "2nd time only" or the equivalent.  When we do see different notes for x1 and x2, they will have stems in opposite directions.  Those notes that are common to both times through would have 2 stems on them.  )

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #6 –
Hi, David -

I've seen it done a couple of ways on the music I've seen.

1)  Use stems up/stems down.  The words will tell the brain which one to use based on the words under the notes.  So the first time through, you would sing (for example) the stems down part and the second time through, you would sing the stems up part.

2)  Use smaller notes super-imposed over the regular notes (well not directly over, but in addition to and readable).  I've seen this often, where on the first time through you would sing the four regular sizedd notes as shown, but the second time through, you would read the smaller notes.  NWC's grace notes are too small to really simulate this very well.

There may be other ways, but those are the ones I've seen.  Normally with NWC, I just use the underline feature to tie two words to the same note or use spacing (or hyphen) so one word appears under the first of two notes.  Most people get it.  Usually (but not always) you just end up making an 8th note two 16ths to accommodate two words (or making a quarter note two eighth notes).

But, the stuff I write out in NWC is usually for me and some other folks, so we're not in a vacuum.  I can usually say (during rehearsal), when you get to the verse with 6 words, just do it this way.  But, it would be nice if NWC supported the smaller notes for this purpose (they could even be on a layered staff, as far as I'm concerned).
John

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #7 –
Another standard means of doing this in vocal music is with a broken tie: e.g., if there is one word in the first verse (a half note) and two words in the second (two quarter notes), you represent the half note by two tied quarter notes and make the tie out of dots or dashes to indicate that it is only used when necessary. Unfortunately, NWC doesn't do broken ties - although there are ways to fake it using "digital whiteout".

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #8 –
Here's a "quick and dirty" version of a dotted tie using digital whiteout. You will have to change the color of Highlight 7 to white (the ability to do that is on the options menu under "colors"). I've used a font that's natively available in the program to create the holes in the tie: a much neater job can be done with a well-chosen combination of characters and user fonts.

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #9 –
That's a great idea Bill, but you can improve the outcome considerably by the following:
  • Set one of the user fonts to 14 pt Bold,
  • Type a sequence of capital "I"s
This produces a very convincing dotted slur.

Thanks for the idea.  See the attached.

Bill.

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #10 –
Sorry for not saying thank you  earlier, gentlemen.  I've been tied up with a non-music program since my trip to Orkney last month, and haven't been back to NWC's forum since posing my question. 

I am happy to see these two examples of digital whiteout.  I can see, however, that we really need a native one, because both workarounds end up cutting the staff lines as well as the tie.

Poor Eric.  No matter how many upgrades he gives us, we ask for more.  Sigh.  The life of a programmer, I guess...

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #11 –
Well, Bill, I hate to be critical - especially of someone with such a nice name :) - but on my machine, your dotted tie also dotted three of the staff lines and wiped out half of one of the noteheads. The point really is, as I said in my previous post, that one needs to make a careful choice of user fonts and characters to get the best results. What I posted had the virtue of demonstrating the idea without recourse to user fonts,  but that was about its only virtue. I would never use exactly that in a score.

Cheers,

Bill

P.S.: I hit "post" and got the notice that David had replied before me - thanks, David. Your comment about both versions cutting staff lines interested me, because the one I posted doesn't cut them on my machine. It appears that printouts vary from machine to machine more than we think. Another very good reason to ask for native versions of many of our workarounds - including this one. (Sorry, Eric, but there it is....)

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #12 –
With a layer, you can make the tie grey.
In NWC 1.75, set Hightlight 3 to RGB(128,128,128) and load the atached file.

This method and the digital whiteout method both suffer from NWC's refusal to store color info with the file. The file is unuseable with the viewer and needs annoying setup with NWC.

In its clipboard format, NWC uses a ^ to indicate a tie. Maybe the whole range of: ~!@#$%^&* could be used for up ties, down ties, hidden ties, dotted and dashed ties ...
Registered user since 1996

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #13 –
William Ashworth wrote:

         "The point really is, as I said in my previous post, that one needs to make a careful choice of user fonts and characters to get the best results."

I heartily agree.  With this work-around the vertical extension necessary for any white-out character to cope with the curve of the slur makes it impossible to avoid dotting at least one line.

Also:

         "It appears that printouts vary from machine to machine more than we think."

Hear hear.  This causes me some angst with choral scores from time to time.  I guess I'll probably stick with bracketed slurs for the time being.

Cheers

Bill.

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #14 –
Regarding user font and character selection, I think Bill's work-around merits a closer look.  Some time ago I failed to achieve a smilar result because I tried to insert the white-out text string, left justified, before the first first slurred note, but the white-out characters failed to over-write the slur/tie.  Bill's clever ploy of inserting a right justified string before the last slurred note solves this problem.

With a staff size of 16 pt, I find that Times Roman Bold 13-point capital "I" just fits into 2 spaces on a staff while only 'dotting' the line between the spaces, so it's possible to dot a mid-staff slur/tie with very little disfigurement of the staff line.  I find it just acceptable for my purposes.  Many slurs lie ouside the staff or can be forced to do so by moving them in the direction of the stems so they do not present the same problem. 

The attachments show several slurs and ties on both nwc1.75  and nwc2 files (2a) & (3) resp.

The procedure is:
  • Set a User Font to 13 pt Bold
  • Insert a right-justified string of capital "I"s with intervening spaces before the last slurre/tied note
  • Expression Placement = Right justified and Alignment Placement = 'at next note/bar'.
  • Color = Highlight X (Where X is White).


Unfortunately nwc2 doesn't alwys work as well as V. 1.75 because of the greater slope of some slurs.

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #15 –
Oops!  Sorry to keep Coming back, but I just realised I did not save my final version of the nwc2 file before attaching an unedited version in my last post.  Please ignore the file <dotted_tie3> in that post and look at this one instead.

Cheers,
Bill.

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #16 –
Definitely better, Bill, but I'm still getting staff lines cut, especially in mm. 2-3. (In m. 1, the middle line is cut halfway through by the bases of the "I's", giving it a curiously serrated look). I fear each of us must ultimately adjust to fit our own printers.

I liked Rick's post about the clipboard format. That string of suggested characters to represent different types of slurs looks just like the way swearing used to be represented in the comic books of my youth - and that's exactly how I feel when I'm trying to adjust one of these broken-slur workarounds.

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #17 –
Quote from: William Ashworth –
.........swearing used to be represented in the comic books of my youth - and that's exactly how I feel when I'm trying to adjust one of these broken-slur workarounds.

Join the club.

Cheers,

Bill.
 

Re: Extra Notes for extra lyrics

Reply #18 –
I am a barbershop harmony singer and have run into this problem a few times.  I finally, after several days of working on the problem, have developed a way that works for my quartet.  I use NWC2 to distribute 'learning tracks' to the other members of the quartet. They use NWC2 Viewer to play the files.

To further complicate the extra note problem, in our style of music the four parts (Tenor, Lead, Baritone and Bass) are written using two staff lines. The Tenor and Lead on the top staff and the Baritone and Bass on the bottom staff.  Additionally it is standard practice to have the stems for the Tenor and Baritone pointing up while those of the Lead and Bass point down.  So a dual stem approach won't work for us. Fortunately most of our music is not rhythmically difficult so I just enclose the 'extra' note in parentheses ( ) with a shorter stem length.  Visually this and the difference in the lyric line give a clear indication of what is going on in this measure. Layer the control staff with a regular staff to assist printing.

My work around is not easy but does the job.  Here is my basic approach.  I am using an hidden/invisible control staff to play the notes for the 'special' measure and have the measure in question muted in the regular staff(s).  Depending on the number of additional notes to be added to the measure, I change the 'special' measure to a different time signature 5/4 or 6/4 as required for just that one measure then it changes back to the regular time signature.  The tempo for this measure is also changed to attempt to keep the playback sounding like it is in the correct tempo.  So the 5/4 measure boosts the tempo 125% and a 6/4 goes up by 150%.  The following measure goes back to the original tempo.  During the iteration with the least number of notes, the 'extra' note(s) time is divided up between the notes to be played.  That is, you are making a faster 5 or 6 beat measure sound like a standard 4 beat measure.   I have used a couple of local repeats in the control staff to easily get to and between the iterations of the 'special' measure.  One other note: Set the Staff Property-General-Ending Bar = Open (hidden) to keep the ending bar out of the print or play process.

I have attached examples that could serve as a guide for your attempts.