Re: Song verses with variant rhythms

[Raphael Mankin]

Attached  is a MWE.

I tried using explicit syllable lengths, but it appears that they were ignored. So writing "rhythm4" or "jer8 -- "ky8" does nothing. Switching the order of the voices in << ... >> made no difference; it always aligned to the shorter notes. So " << c4 \\ {a8 a8 } >>" or "<< {a8 a8 } \\ c4 >>" yielded the same result. I have not played with more complicated rhythms, e.g. tuplets. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. For the simple cases I need atm it seems that a spacer "_" is sufficient. Beyond that, it is guess and fiddle.

MWE2.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

\version "2.24.3"
\language "english"

\header {
  title = "Variant Rhythms"
  subtitle = "Explicit syllable lengths"
}

global = {
  \key c \major
  \time 4/4
  \partial 4
}

chordNames = \chordmode {
  \global
  % Chords follow here.
  
}

melody = \relative c'' {
  \global
  % Music follows here.
  c4 |
  c4 c << c4 \\ {a8  a8 } >> c4 |
  c4 c8 c c4
}

verseA = \lyricmode {
  % Lyrics follow here.
  Verse with smooth rhythm _ words
  And stac -- ca -- to
}

verseB = \lyricmode {
  % Lyrics follow here.
   Verse with short jer -- ky words
   And stac -- ca -- to
}
\score {
  <<
    \new ChordNames \chordNames
    \new Staff { \melody }
    \addlyrics { \verseA }
    \addlyrics { \verseB }
  >>
  \layout { }
}