Re: Melisma with manual syllable durations

[David Wright]

On Mon 20 Feb 2017 at 18:37:15 (+0000), David Sumbler wrote:
> 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?"

Um, that's what I did in my response. Perhaps you were distracted by
my aside. Anyway, here's an edited version of your example, complete
with a screenshot of the output.

\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 { Du8 -- ra -- tions are4. __ all8 pre4 -- served.4. }

<<
  \new Staff { \voice }
  \addlyrics { \words }
  \addlyrics { \override LyricText.font-shape = #'italic
                \trans }
>>

Writing \addlyrics means that it uses the voice above for the
melisma information. You wrote \new, which has no such built-in
assumption.

> 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.

AFAICT it's the best supported of all lyric input methods. A shame
it's so tedious to write, and gives rise to a side effect, ie making
digits reserved characters.

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

Cheers,
David.

mel.png
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