On Jun 14, 2004, at 7:28 AM, collegemennonite.org wrote:
I always use note spacing in the Mass Edit Tool. I have "lyrics" checked in my default spacing options. I tried unchecking "lyrics" and it does space the first note evenly throughout, however it causes many other lyric collisions.
Yeah, lyric spacing can be a bitch that way.
One general technique I use a lot for piano-vocal music is this: First I space the music with Lyrics checked under Music Spacing Options. Using that, I set the layout for the entire piece and lock all the systems. Then I go back and respace the music with Lyrics turned off. Since the system breaks were locked for the wider measures, it tends to be a pretty good match for what I'll want. Then when I go through the whole piece to tweak the spacing, I adjust measure widths individually as needed.
It sounds tedious, and to a certain extent it is, but I've yet to find any automatic algorithm that even comes close to making really good lyric spacing. I just think of it as part of the job for any vocal music that needs to be high-quality. With practice, you get used to knowing what sort of patterns to watch for and a lot of it becomes second-nature. Some vocal music is easier than others. What's worst is when the ratio of syllable density to note density varies a lot throughout the piece.
Another more localized technique which I occasionally use is to temporarily change the first lyric syllable in a measure to a single letter, then respace the measure (with Lyrics checked), then change the syllable back to what it was.
mdl
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