Re: Melisma with manual syllable durations

[David Sumbler]

On Sun, 2017-02-19 at 14:49 +0000, David Sumbler wrote:
> In 2 of the set of 6 songs I have (rather slowly) been setting, I
> want
> 2 sets of words: the original, and an English version.  In each of
> the
> other 4 songs there is just one set of words.
> 
> After much experimentation and a lot of failures, I found a way of
> doing what I wanted, which is to use manual durations.  This may very
> well not be the best nor the simplest way of doing it, but it is the
> only way I found that works.
> 
> The only trouble is, I cannot work out how to produce a melisma mark
> when using manual durations.  The following snippet illustrates the
> problem:
> 
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> \version "2.19.48"
> 
> \paper { ragged-right = ##f }
> 
> voice = { \time 3/4 \partial 8
>         e'8 | e' d' d'4( ~ d'16 c') b8 | c'4 c'4. r8 \bar "|."
>       }
> 
> words = \lyricmode { Ac er -- aill yn __ ei fe -- di. }
> 
> trans = \lyricmode { An8 -- oth -- er reaps4. __ the8 har4 -- vest.4.
> }
> 
> <<
>   \new Staff { \voice }
>   \addlyrics { \words }
>   \new Lyrics { \override LyricText.font-shape = #'italic
>               \trans }
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> 
> The melisma appears as required in the upper set of words, but not in
> the lower.  I have tried various ways to get what I want, but so far
> without any success.
> 
> Can it be done?

Thank you for the responses to my question.

Unfortunately, I now realise that the question was not clearly
expressed.  It was not intended to be "is there a way to get melisma in
upper and lower voices", but "is there a way to get melisma marks when
using manual syllable durations?"

As I said in my original post, I had tried various other ways of
setting the second set of words, including the obvious one of creating
a \new Voice at the relevant point of the vocal staff and using
\lyricsto.  Unfortunately there was a problem with this, which was that
the words were set one note late, try as I might to get around the
problem.  So instead of spending possibly hours trying to get to the
root of this, I decided to try manual durations, which appeared to work
perfectly - until I ran into this melisma problem in the second of the
relevant songs.  (There is no melisma in the first of the 2 songs.)

In view of the fact that manual durations are the first to be shown in
the Notation Reference, it seems surprising if such a standard part of
musical notation is not supported.

So - can anyone tell me if melisma markings be produced when using
manual durations with lyrics?  And if so, how?

David