Re: mid-melisma lyrics

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Trevor,

> I think I might treat the "m" as a separate lyric event, i.e. as a separate 
> syllable, like this:

Well, that's one way of doing it…
I don't like it, though: it's not the convention (cf. Gould, bottom of pg. 
453), nor is it particularly intuitive for a singer.

That being said, you *did* give me a hint which inspired the attached modified 
snippet, which works (pretty well!) by tweaking the LyricHyphen so that it 
mimics an extender. Unfortunately, it still requires some manual input with 
trial-and-error, for the LyricHyphen length — once the current commission 
pressure is off, I'll see what I can do about somehow making it automagic.

Thanks!
Kieren.

%%%  SNIPPET BEGINS
\version "2.19.64"

\layout {
  ragged-right = ##f
}

melUnbusy = \once \set melismaBusyProperties = #'()

hyphext = {
  \once \override LyricHyphen.length = #25
  \once \override LyricHyphen.thickness = #0.8
  \once \override LyricHyphen.Y-offset = #-0.45
  \once \override LyricHyphen.extra-offset = #'(0.375 . 0)
}

\score {
 <<
   \new Staff
   \new Voice {
     c''1 ~
     \melUnbusy c''1 ~
     c''1
   }
   \addlyrics { \lyricmode { \hyphext room -- \tweak whiteout #2 (m) __ } }
 >>
}
%%%  SNIPPET ENDS
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden