Lyrics placement

[Guy Stalnaker]

Hello everyone -- my first question to this list.

I am new to Lilypond and have been working with it over the past week or so. I think I have notation well in hand and lyrics. I'm using Frescobaldi for entering data and running Lilypond against the .ly file.

I have all the music coded for a new SSATBB choral piece. I want the lyrics for the SopranoOne part to be above the staff with the lyrics for SopranoTwo below. Naturally, Lilypond puts the lyrics below the staff per the default.

I have looked over the Learning Guide and the Notation Reference for help in telling Lilypond to put S1 lyrics above the staff. Yet I'm stymied by differences in terminology. The Learning Guide uses "/addlyrics" in its examples (as does my file) while the Notation Reference uses "/new lyrics /lyricsto". When the Notatation Reference shows examples on how to modify lyric placement, it shows two different examples that I cannot map to my use of /addlyrics. I know it's a context thing, but I cannot grok what's supposed to happen. I'm building the score with variables thus:

<quote>

sopranoVoicePart = \new Staff \with {

instrumentName = "Soprano"

midiInstrument = "choir aahs"

} <<

{ \sopranoVoiceOne }

\addlyrics { \verseSopranoVoiceOne }

{ \sopranoVoiceTwo }

\addlyrics { \verseSopranoVoiceTwo }

>>

altoVoicePart = \new Staff \with {

instrumentName = "Alto"

midiInstrument = "choir aahs"

} { \altoVoice }

\addlyrics { \verseAltoVoice }

tenorVoicePart = \new Staff \with {

instrumentName = "Tenor"

midiInstrument = "choir aahs"

} { \clef "treble_8" \tenorVoice }

\addlyrics { \verseTenorVoice }

bassVoicePart = \new Staff \with {

instrumentName = "Bass"

midiInstrument = "choir aahs"

} { \clef bass \bassVoice }

\addlyrics { \verseBassVoice }

\score {

<<

\sopranoVoicePart

\altoVoicePart

\tenorVoicePart

\bassVoicePart

>>

\layout { }

\midi { }
</quote>

This works perfectly with lyrics for sopranoVoiceOne and places them below the staff aligned with the notes. How to I get the lyrics above the staf if I use /addlyrics? I've tried futzing with modifying /addlyrics to /new lyrics, etc. but that creates errors on compiling.

Any help is appreciated.

Guy

-- 

"There is only love, and then oblivion. Love is all we have
to set against hatred." (paraphrased) Ian McEwan

Guy Stalnaker, address@hidden, 1210 West Dayton Street, Room 3209 CSS, Madison
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