Re: Lyrics / staffs/ contexts - which way is best for me

[andrew Black]

Thanks Ruud for a useful template. And thanks Mats for giving me some 
insight into contexts. Taken together I am beginning to piece the 
concepts together,

Ruud van Silfhout wrote:

> rightHandMusic = \relative c' { c d e f }
> leftHandMusic = \relative c { e f g a }
>
> \score {
>  \context GrandStaff <<
>    \context ChoirStaff <<
>    \context Voice = sopranoVoice { \sopranoMusic }
>    \context Lyrics = sopranoLyrics \lyricsto sopranoVoice 

>                                          {\sopranoLyrics }
         ..... etc
>    >>

I would like to check my understanding of how it is put together.
The score is made out of a GrandStaff, that is made out of ChoirStaff 
and PianoStaff.  The ChoirStaff is made from sopranoVoice, then 
sopranoLyrics etc etc. There is a "link" indicating that the sop lyrics 
belong to the sop line using \lyricsto


Going back to the SATB example (2 stave)

        \context ChoirStaff <<
           \context Lyrics = sopranos { s1 }
           \context Staff = women <<
              \context Voice =
                sopranos { \voiceOne << \global \sopMusic >> }
              \context Voice =
                altos { \voiceTwo << \global \altoMusic >> }
           >>
           \context Lyrics = altos { s1 }
           etc
           \context Lyrics = sopranos \lyricsto sopranos \sopWords

This says you ahve some lyrics, a Staff (with 2 voices) some more 
Lyrics.  Then you jump back into the "Lyrics = sopranos" and say what 
the words actually are, and that it links to the soprano.

One of the things that confused me about this is that "sopranos" is both 
a name of a Lyric context and a Voice context.   Presumably each has its 
own name space.

Final questions - what is the s1 in "\context Lyrics = sopranos { s1 }".
My assumption is that is is "skip semibreve".  Why do you need to tell 
the lyrics how long the notes are - doesn't it get the lengths from 
corresponding music?