Re: Combining voices in American Hymns

[David F.]

On Sep 8, 2016, at 8:52 AM, David Wright <address@hidden> wrote:

> There's another "feature" of American hymn books illustrated on
> http://www.hymnary.org/text/amazing_grace_how_sweet_the_sound#pagescans
> which I haven't seen any mention of before, and only noticed recently
> when thumbing my way through a hymnbook during a boring hymn.
> 
> We're used to seeing lyrics left-aligned when under a melisma, but
> centred under the note otherwise. However, some hymnbooks left-align
> the first lyric on each printed line regardless.
> 
> The second hymn from the left, which is a link to
> http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/G32011/page/484
> shows this. I don't want it, but can LP do this automatically?

Ah, yes. It would be nice if Lilypond could be coaxed to do that.

Also, I’ve noticed that hymnals will often place line breaks inside a measure 
when the song begins with a partial measure, such that subsequent lines also 
begin with the same partial measure.  This typically also corresponds to the 
beginning of a poetic line.

For example, in this attached version of Amazing Grace, I’d prefer the first 
line to include first two beats of bar 7 (corresponding to the word “me!” in 
the first verse).

I know I can do this by hand, but it would be great if I could tell Lilypond to 
take an initial partial measure into account when breaking lines.

David

Amazing Grace.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document