RE: Lyric word spanning two notes

[Linda Cantoni]

Hi Stephen -

I don't know what version you're using, but in 2.6.4 (and probably in other
versions, I'm not sure) you can use the \melisma command in the music to
stretch a syllable over several notes.

Here's an example of something I transcribed a while back from a choral work
(in Lilypond v. 2.6.4):

altoMusic = \relative c' {
  d8 d8 d8 d8 d4. cs8 cs'1 \melisma cs1 cs2 \melismaEnd cs2 
}

altoWords = \lyricmode {
  In der un -- ge -- heu -- 'ren Wei -- te.
}

In the above, the syllable "Wei" is stretched over two whole notes and a
half note.  (Note that the \melisma command is inserted after the first note
where you want the melimsa to begin.)  For more info on the \melisma
command, see the manual for version 2.6, section 7.3.4.

Hope this helps,

Linda Cantoni

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden
[mailto:address@hidden On Behalf
Of Stephen Torri
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 2:49 AM
To: lilypond
Subject: Lyric word spanning two notes

I have a measure in 2/2 time which I have four quarter notes. Below it I
want to have lyrics where one word is sung in two parts in this measure.
So the notes and lyrics go in a pseudo code fashion would be:

a  b  c  d
si -- lience

The notes 'a' and 'b' are paired with 'si--' where 'c' and 'd' are
paired with 'lience'. So far I have the lyrics for this song as:

 %---------------------------
%   Lyrics
%---------------------------
words = \lyricmode { Let all mor -- tal | flesh keep | si -- lence, |
and with fear and }

I get an error message about my lyrics mode line because I believe its
expecting four words or syllables for measure #3. How do I tell lilypond
to be please let 'si' be one count in 2/2 time and 'lience' be for one
count?

Stephen