Re: single-staff polyphony with changing lyrics

[James Bailey]

On Aug 10, 2010, at 2:02 AM, apqc wrote:

> 
> Hello :)
> 
> I have run into an issue with a choral piece (Gretchaninov's Cherubic Hymn)
> of which I am making an edition.
> 
> In the tenor part, the voice splits and I need to align the lyrics
> differently: in bar 3 of the extract below, the lower tenor sings 'отложимъ'
> again, and in bar 4, while the lower tenor sings the final syllable (жимъ)
> the higher tenor starts 'отложимъ' again (ideally the text would be above
> the staff). On the third beat of bar 5, when the line is no longer split,
> they should be singing 'попечение'. Then from bar 7 to the end, the lyrics
> should be 'отложимъ, отложимъ попечение.'
> 
> So I need to figure out how to tell lilypond to align the lyrics correctly
> with Voice One and Voice Two, above the staff where necessary. Any ideas?

1) Name the Staff
2) Name the voices explicitly
3) Use \new Lyrics \with { alignAboveContext = StaffContextName } \lyricsto 
VoiceContextName \lyricmode

that should get you everything you need.

for an example:
\version "2.12.3"

\score {
   <<
      \new Staff = "Voices" { \new Voice = first { c' d' << { \voiceOne e' } 
\new Voice = second { \voiceTwo c'4 } >> \oneVoice f' } }
      \new Lyrics \lyricsto first \lyricmode { c d e f }
      \new Lyrics \with { alignAboveContext = Voices } \lyricsto second 
\lyricmode { c }
   >>
}