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Topic: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left (Read 8276 times) previous topic - next topic

Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

I'm inputting "Piano Man" by Billy Joel to NoteWorthy. I'm still learning about piano (and I'm using NoteWorthy to help me learn), but there's a little backslash from the right hand to the left hand at a certain point in the song, because the melody is being played at the left hand for a brief moment. If you are familiar with the song, it happens at this point.

There's an old man sitting next to me

---makin' love--- to his tonic and gin

"makin' love" is played by the left hand, and the rest is layed by the right. However, the problem is with the lyrics I've put into NoteWorthy. The program continues "makin' love" on the right hand, (God that sounded bad), and the notes which should be "makin' love" (oh god) have no lyrics above them. Is there a feature I could use to fix this?

If you are totally confused, I'll send you my work in progress....please respond by email.

--Jesse Alter

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #1 –
I assume you assigned the lyrics to the right-hand staff, and you are using rests where the left hand is played. You have two options. The simplest is to assign the lyrics to each hand. For the left hand, in the Staff Lyrics Configuration tab, select Alignment to Top, and adjust the Offset (negative) so that the lyrics are on the same line as the right hand lyrics. If the lyrics collide, you can add spaces by appending an underscore to them (eg. __lyric). The underscores are displayed a spaces.

Alternatively, you can fit multiple words into a single beat by connecting them with underscores. So you could append "(last word)_makin'_love" to your last word.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #2 –
No, that's not it. The left hand is playing harmony, and the right is playing melody, but at a certain point they switch, but the lyrics continue following the right hand.

It's VERY frusterating.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #3 –
Ack! There's also a short musical interlude without any lyrics, and the program is placing lyrics on the interlude.

Is there anyway I can manually control the placement of lyrics?

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #4 –
See the following:

- The help file section for the Lyric editor (press the Help button in the lyric editor to get there fast)

- The help file common question section, question #15 (in the Editing Section)

- The FAQ on our web site (a link is on the New Post form)

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #5 –
If you think you have a solution to this next problem with lyrics, you'll probably need the NWC file I'm working on. I'll send it on request...

The timing got all screwed up when I went on the second verse. I tried different combinations of underscores between words, and skipping certain parts, but it's still no good. 99% of the music in the song is done, and the remainder of the lyrics can be retrieved from http://www.lyrics.ch. If you finish this up for me, you'll get a mention in the "Comments" section when I start distributing the song. I'll also be very greatful. Or even just do the "Now John at the bar..." verse to get me started. Thanks!

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #6 –
Jesse, to make lyrics appear farther, use sequences of '_ _ _ _ _ ' ... until you got them at the proper place (so create a lyrics line available on both staves). When there is a "bridge", insert same sequence in the lyrics.

You may send me your file if you don't understand what I mean, or ask me to send you one :-)

BTW, www.lyrics.ch is back ??? Great news !!! I was afraid it'd stay closed as www.altern.org !

HTH, Marsu

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #7 –
One more suggestion: If the piano music is really a "mess" (from the lyrics point of view), then maybe you should consider a hidden track for lyrics only. Write the one-note melody on this track, assign lyrics, and use the Lyrics Configuration tab to offset the lyrics to where you want them to appear (I assume between the two piano staves).

You don't even need the melody - assign all the notes to the same key but make sure the timing is correct. Mute this track, and hide it in the Setup Dialog (first tab).

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #8 –
Just one problem... when you hide the "dummy track", the lyrics disappear also... Darn! Would have been nice.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #9 –
Surely this problem would be best solved by exporting the metafile (from print preview - copy) to a suitable DTP program and entering the offending text manually. I've plugged Serif Page Plus in the past, and I believe Word also does a satisfactory job. HTH, Peter.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #10 –
I've solved the problem using what is currently available in NoteWorthy Composer 1.55b. Wait till Jesse posts the file, to see how I did it.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #11 –
Why not just include a (visible) vocal line, with the lyrics? That's the way it would appear in actual printed sheet music, anyway.

It's very hard to produce audible words with fingers on piano keys.

- seb

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #13 –
It's the old mime-type problem. There is a way of fixing it; SAVE AS... then load it into a hex editor such as HexWorks and replace all occurrences of 0d0a with 0a. (There are two such occurrences). Then it runs in NWC normally. (Note: this is not a guaranteed fix for all such files, but it works with this one.)

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #14 –
Or, on second thought, zip it up and post it on the website as a .zip file.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #15 –
The embedded space between "piano" and "man" may also cause problems.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #16 –
Message for Ken Jentsch: Here is reply 16, which did not cause any problems. Maybe something else is causing your problem. Could you be specific as to what happens...

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #17 –
Due to the apparent problem of posting the file, I will try to explain 'my' solution.

The lyrics for the bottom staff are aligned to 'top', with an offset of -16 to push them up to be level with the lyrics attached to the top staff. Then I inserted a 'text expression' of blank spaces after the lower lyrics to keep them from overlapping the lyrics from the top staff.

KenJ

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #18 –
Thank you all for your help! When I completely finish the song, I will post the file in a ZIP file, as was recommended by Fred, to illustrate Ken's solution.

NWC-Support: I am aware of the problem with spaces, but by replacing spaces with "%20" that problem is solved. Thanks, however, for the suggestion.

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #19 –
While the %20 does encode the space per internet specs, it does not necessarily avoid the problems that embedded spaces can trigger upstream and downstream.......

Re: Melody Switching From Right Hand to Left

Reply #20 –
...and that one can experiment on 16bits systems. The part after the %20 (which turns into a space) is often lost, and when not, then many programs can not read the file (they don't find it, and you have to rename it with such a command as: (for "foo bar.nwc") ren foo?bar.nwc foo_bar.nwc [Enter]