Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: overlapping syllables (Read 9028 times) previous topic - next topic

overlapping syllables

I am transcribing 4-part vocal music on two clefs. Occasionally
(e.g.) soprano will have "dotted-quarter , eighth" notes
for two syllables where the alto has two quarter notes.
NWC nicely chords the dotted-quarter note with the first
quarter note, but when I put in the other notes (which
should not show as a chord even though they fit the same
syllable in the lyrics) NWC wants to treat them as successive
rather than partly overlapping. Can NWC do this? and How do
I show it?

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #1 –
One (less than ideal) way is to have your second quarter note as
two (tied) eighth notes. Then the second of these eighth notes
appears in a chord with the soprano's eighth note.

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #2 –
I ain't sure that I understood your problem, but if it is what I think there is a solution.
It depends on whether you use 2 lyrics or one.
Let's say that the text is "one two three" ("three" being just after the musical scheme you describe).
If two lyrics (one for sop., one alto) : on the sop. lyrics, put : "one two _ three" and in the alto's (lower) : "one _ two three".
If only one lyric line, put "one __two _ three". The eighth' syllable will be written a bit one the right of the 2nd quarter, and a bit before the eighth.

HTH. If you want an example, I could send you a .nwc file, but it is not possible here. I'd rather add a trick then.

                  Dominique

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #3 –
I found a limitation on the above technique. NWC considers the musical scheme as 2 quarters plus one eighth, which is obviously wrong. If you try Audit/Bar line, you'll see what I mean. But for printing purpose, it remains valid. Be careful with the other staves though !

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #4 –
My application has one line of lyrics, which, as you point
out, can be made to work with anything by judicious use of
underscore. The real problem is the musical count.
And I have a separate staff (tenor and bass voices).
View, play, or print, the staves just won't line up.
I don't mind it not playing, but I want useable printouts.

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #5 –
> My application has one line of lyrics, which, as you point out,
> can be made to work with anything by judicious use of underscore.
> The real problem is the musical count.

NWC does not truly support dual voices in one staff (unless you are using the experiemtal staff layering feature). This is why you sometimes have to split a note into two notes that are tied together. This issue is spelled out in the chord member help:

"Lastly, it is important to understand that only the smaller duration item is actually used in aligning notes on a score. When creating split-stem chords, the notes in the larger duration are ignored when formatting and alignment is performed with respect to other notes above and around this item. It is also only possible to beam, triplet, or slur the notes of the shorter duration in a split stem chord."

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #7 –
Ok, I got a solution.
What I did is to keep the 2 quarters (alto), and the dotted quarter (sop.). With this items only, the other staff matches perfectly.
Now you have to add the missing soprano eighth. I did this by inserting a text item, with 'G' as the text, position 6 (for a B note), and set the font to User1, User1 being NWCV15 regular 42. You may want to change the font size depending on your staff size (I used 19).
Do not forget to NOT preserve width for the text item. It will save space, and more : it will display the diamond that reminds you this is not a true note... :-)

I used such a trick in http://www.mygale.org/05/madmarsu/doeba.zip for the : at the end.

I'll put this method to the NRU tricks (if not present yet).

Bet this helps !

Dominique

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #8 –
Just forgot to mention this work for upper stems only.
Eric, do you have a solution for down stems ? There is no such item in the font !? Guess you use 'N', 'k', 't', but for the stem ??

Note for doeba.nwc : I also used white text items to have only two measure per staff. And could someone tell me if the {mpc} volume does work ? It doesn't on my SB card :-(

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #9 –
I believe you need a wave table card to implement a crescendo on a held note.
Eric has replied so in an earlier thread.
It seems that the SB16 card is limited to sounding only the original note velocity as it is received and cannot modify this once the note is sounding.
A series of notes increasing in volume will be handled okay as each individual note velocity is played as received.
I too have an SB16 - I wish it could do cresc. and dim. on a held note.

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #10 –
Thanx Barry for the explanation.
I already tried to transform a whole note into 64 64th to try to avoid this behaviour (about velocity as well as volume, which is not the same (in particular organ : ppp or fff will sound the same, as it changes velocity; but volume changes will sound ok)
But it lead me to another problem : the note seemed to be re-attacked on each 64th... Even if they were tied, and even with legato style (which has an effect only on duration greater than 8th, it seems).
Is it a midi card problem, or a NWC problem ? I dunno (yet).

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #11 –
this is an other addendum to reply5 (the one that links to doeba.zip).
If the note added via the text item is not properly placed (such as on the bar line), just add after it another text item (with lyric italic font) that contains one or more space(s), preserving width. This will push the bar line (or whatever) further on the right.
(I also use such "hidden space" in doeba.zip, making a single note measure (# 11) wider.)

Hope this helps.

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #12 –
I am running into a related but "simpler" problem: Chording
of unlike notes. (I know this is a new feature.) Some
combinations I haven't been able to do at all. Others
work (or don't work) depending on which note is
entered first. And still others can be made to work by
entering one note and changing its stem direction before
entering the other note. I haven't seen a pattern yet.
Should I give examples of failing cases, or send a
file in?

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #13 –
The rules I found are :
- a note with stem up can not be lower than a note with stem down, and recipr. ;
- one or two different durations can be used, not more (which I've never seen anyway) ; if two diff. durations, they must be different stems direction ;
- a rest, if present, must be smaller and entered first ; you can then have only one stem direction (the rest takes the 2nd) ;
- the rest will move (if necessary) up or down depending on its stem direction ;

For more details, refer to the online help.

Hope this helps.
      Dominique P.

P.S. For "standard" chords, I use macro recorders (as well as for arpeggios) for Maj, 5th, ... 1-3-5-7, ... Very useful for guitar or piano scores.

Re: overlapping syllables

Reply #14 –
There are more rules. Sometimes you cannot enter a new note
above a stem-down note, but you can delete the stem-down
note, enter the upper note, upsize its stem, and re-enter
the stem-down note. Sometimes even this fails. Unison and
second chords are obviously a special case, and I would
expect more difficulty, but occasionally they work...