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Topic: Gregorian chant notation problems (Read 4227 times) previous topic - next topic

Gregorian chant notation problems

Hi. I have been using this program to notate gregorian and orthodox chant. It is extremely tedious, because there is no way to assign long strings of words, sometimes as many as 20, to one note. I have to just repeat the note over and over. The underscore can't handle that many words. Does anyone know of a trick that will do this?
Thanks

Re: Gregorian chant notation problems

Reply #1 –
I have not had this problem. How does you chant differ from the attached mass setting excerpt?
Registered user since 1996

Re: Gregorian chant notation problems

Reply #2 –
Rick,

It would be even better if you could take the presider's line and make it two lines to save space.  I think I tried a work-around with something like that (using another line of lyrics, a "verse 2").  As well, I'll make my yearly plug for a breve here.....

Re: Gregorian chant notation problems

Reply #3 –
Quote
I have been using this program to notate gregorian and orthodox chant. It is extremely tedious, because there is no way to assign long strings of words, sometimes as many as 20, to one note. I have to just repeat the note over and over. The underscore can't handle that many words. Does anyone know of a trick that will do this

As an experiment, I made a simple song file consisting of one whole note, a bar line, and a second whole note.  I then entered more than 20 words, separated by the underscore, and these words all appeared under the first note.

These are the words I used (stolen from your message) - I didn't count them, but it looks like more than 20...
assign_long_strings_of_words,assign_long_strings_of_wordsassign_long_strings_of_words,assign_long_strings_of
_wordsassign_long_strings_of_words,assign_long_strings_of_wordsassign_long_strings_of_words,assign_long_
strings_of_wordsassign_long_strings_of_words,assign_long_strings_of_wordsassign_long_strings_of_words,
assign_long_strings_of_words

Initially the entire word string was centred under the note, which ended up being the middle of a very wide first bar.  That was easily remedied, though, with the Align Syllable Using entry on the Configuration tab of the Lyric Editor.

Re: Gregorian chant notation problems

Reply #4 –
Depends on the Staff Metrics and size of the Lyric Font, but IMO NWC handles this well. You do need to select: Align Syllable Using: 'Start of Accidental/Note'. This may cause problems if as in my above example, the chant changes to a normal song.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Gregorian chant notation problems

Reply #5 –
The above replies nicely address the details of getting lyrics to work.  If for some reason you still can't get lyrics to work correctly (which would certainly be the preferred route) you could consider entering a text element that aligns with each note.  That will give you note-by-note control over the lyrics, but will be very tedious.  I have also entered chant, and have NOT had problems with the lyrics, nevertheless each case is different.  Maybe you have a space hiding somewhere that your eye isn't catching.