Behind the Notation: Lyrics

| Apr 12, 2017

Are you the kind of person who mainly remembers the lyrics of a song, or do you lot recollect the melody more readily? Or both equally? This article will be of special involvement to the "lyrics-oriented" amidst you, simply it's important for anyone writing down music with words, whether it's bluegrass, opera, choral music, or Indonesian pop. If those lyrics have been written along with the tune (not always the case — some songbooks presume you lot know the tunes and include simply the lyrics), then someone somewhere had to grapple with the question: "how do I write this so the vocaliser will know exactly how to line up the lyrics with the notes… even if they have never heard the song before?" Of course singers oft know the song already, so the sheet music serves partly as a memory aid. But a primal purpose of music notation is to serve as a consummate blueprint for re-creating music from scratch, entirely from the score. If you lot are the composer or arranger, bold that the reader has never heard the music earlier is the best manner to ensure your score is as clear and elegantly written as it can be.

Writing lyrics tin can be tricky because it's not always obvious how they should line up with the notes. If you get it incorrect, you lot may confuse the singer and become some unexpected results. This article reviews the nuts of lyrics notation, then delves into deeper mysteries such as beaming and syllabification.

Basics

At that place are a few conventions of lyric-writing, passed down to united states of america through the centuries, that Noteflight handles for you… if you are using Noteflight correctly. Be sure to read this section in our User Guide.

1. Lyrics become below the staff, except in unusual circumstances.
two. Each syllable lines up vertically under the annotation or group of notes on which that syllable is sung.
3. Dashes (hyphen key) dissever syllables inside the same word.
4. Spaces (infinite bar) dissever different words.
5. An underscore line (underscore, or shift-hyphen) continues to the last note of a melisma (many notes on 1 syllable) – as in a single-syllable word or the concluding syllable in a word.

For these elements to await right in your score, you need to use our special kind of text designed for Lyrics: select a note, click the picayune "la-" icon on the Object Editing Palette, and starting time typing your lyrics, using spaces and hyphens between syllables and words at the correct moments. The almost frequently-missed of these is the continuation-underscore lines at the ends of words.

Here is a sample showing the aforementioned melody written iii times: the beginning version has several mistakes; the eye one is pretty expert merely nevertheless leaves out some important elements — this one is typical of how many scores on Noteflight expect — and the third version has some further corrections, for a beauteous issue.

Tin can you identify all the errors in Versions one and ii?

Errors in Version 1:
– "-mazing" is two syllables with no dash between them, and that's a problem. A single annotation can't have more than one syllable except in special cases. And in this instance, doing this leaves two notes without any lyrics at all!
– "li-ke": unmarried-syllable words, and individual syllables, should not break up into carve up vowels and consonants. Try singing the give-and-take "li-ke" and you'll see why: if you have it very literally, it is telling you to sing simply a closed consonant "-ke" on that note: nearly impossible, though it sounds a bit comical to endeavor!

Time out for an Eternal Truth of Vocal Writing! Y'all can sing on a vowel, merely information technology's much harder to sing on most consonants, except open, voiced ones like mmmm, ngggg, or nnnnn.

Version ii looks pretty skillful, but examine information technology carefully to meet why it withal needed the corrections seen in Version 3:
– Slurs and extension/underscore lines were missing in Version 2 on "-ing", "a", and "like". These are always needed on multi-note syllables (some music editors omit the slurs, only no one knows why they engage in this mysterious behavior; y'all should always include the slurs).
– For words ending in "-ing", the "-ing" should become by itself. It's just ordinarily easier to read.
– Oh, and there was a little typo in Version 2: the missing dash in "astonishing." Those little dashes are very like shooting fish in a barrel to miss – especially when they are missing!

And that'southward just the beginning. At that place is more you volition demand to continue in heed — things that Noteflight can't right for you — to brand your scores await right, clear, and beautiful.

Dynamics

In a vocal office, dynamics get to a higher place the staff. This is for the simple reason that if they are below the staff (as is right in instrumental parts) they compete for visual attention with the lyrics, and tin too hands crash into the lyrics (music notation is like traffic safe: endeavour to avoid objects crashing into each other). This includes all expression-related items: dynamic markings such as p , ff , etc; expression markings such every bit espressivo, cresc., and dim., and "hairpin" markings showing crescendos and diminuendos.

Noteflight places dynamics beneath the staff by default (since it is the default the residuum of the time), so yous will need to movement the commencement one manually up — the best style is by using the upwardly-arrow key. Just after that a newly-created expression text item (which includes dynamics) will automatically appear in the aforementioned location every bit the previous one, and so you won't demand to move each one. If you exercise need to move a lot of dynamics at once, apply the Filter tool in the Edit menu to select them, then the up arrow.

A frequent question nosotros get is: how to create a second, tertiary, and quaternary line of lyrics for additional verses? This is in our User Guide but is worth reviewing hither: just double-click the first syllable of your lyrics to get the blinking cursor, hit the return/enter key, and continue typing to enter your next verse.

Melisma is Not a Malady

When more i notation occurs on one syllable information technology's chosen a melisma. If that syllable is in the center of a give-and-take, keeping hitting the hyphen central to add dashes until you lot get to the next syllable (at that place tin exist any number of dashes); if it's at the finish of a discussion, use an extension line (underscore). Make certain to put a slur over all the notes in your melisma.

If 1 syllable can have more one note, can one annotation take more than than one syllable? Virtually always, no. But at that place are some exceptions. As our User Guide points out, some languages such as Italian have elisions between words. To add 2 syllables or words on ane note, use the plus sign (+) for the space between the words (when you exit the blinking cursor, the + will disappear).

To Axle, or Non to Axle?

In older printed editions of song scores, you will ofttimes see beams joining notes that autumn under one syllable, while split syllables have separately flagged notes and no beams. Singers will tell you: that old way is really hard to read, and it's non longer done this way. Instead, utilize regular effulgent to show the shell divisions (check out our earlier commodity on that topic), and slurs to testify melismas:

Syllabification

Probably the trickiest topic in writing lyrics is how to carve up the words into syllables. This article only discusses syllabification in English; tackling other languages is just too long a topic to fit hither.

Particularly Welsh.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Only even English has many a puzzler to go on the lyricist busy. For instance, yous have probably found yourself wondering on more than one occasion, "is it sup-er-ca-li-fra-gil-is-tic-ex-pi-a-li-do-cious? or su-per-cal-i-frag-i-list-ic-exp-i-al-i-doc-ious?' Mary Poppins wants to know.

This is where lyric annotation is more of an art than a scientific discipline — that is, at that place is some room for disagreement among experts. However, there are some agreed-upon norms that you should follow.

The simplest rule of thumb is that lyric syllabification follows the syllabification in the dictionary. According to Oxford Dictionaries online, it's:
su·per·ca·li·fra·gil·is·tic·ex·pi·a·li·practice·cious

Meanwhile, at least one version of the musical score has information technology:
su-per-cal-i-frag-il-is-tic-ex-pi-al-i-do-cious

Why those small differences? "-cal-i-" or "-ca-li-"? "-fra-gil-" or "-frag-il-"? And how to choose? These are amidst the many things that go along Mary Poppins up at night. The option involves where to place the consonants, and the guiding principle should be: what's easiest for the vocalizer to read? But that isn't always obvious. What are the pros and cons in a given case?

A normally-seen and (on the face of it) logical choice is to put each consonant on the annotation on which the singer will actually be sounding that consonant: so in the Mary Poppins vocal "-ca-" would go on one note, and "-li-" on the next notation; similarly, "-fra-" and so "-thousandil-". But this approach doesn't e'er requite the most readable result, because consonants before and after a vowel make up one's mind which version of that vowel we use.

Let's illustrate this with a different instance. What if you were a singer sight-reading this piece you lot've never seen or heard before, and there is a folio plough in the middle of a word, like this:

That mu- presents you lot with a fateful selection! Your career could hang in the residual! If the discussion is "music," yous should sing "myoo" but if it'southward "mutton" y'all should sing "muh". The composer has not given y'all enough information!

Luckily, vegetarians can rest easy, considering here it is rewritten with the consonant where it belongs:

If that syllable were "mut-" you lot still don't know the whole word yet, just at to the lowest degree you know which vowel to utilize. Words with double consonants between syllables are overnice because you tin can put each consonant on 1 of the syllables: mut-ton.

All that said, this is not an verbal science: "mus-" wouldn't take entirely clarified things: information technology could have been "mustard" — which incidentally goes bully with mutton (vegetarians, you are not entirely condom). But it'due south better than "mu-".

For a word with two syllables that each have their own separate starting/ending consonants, like "shoulder," the word should be split with each syllable intact: shoul-der.

Si-nging? No.

Every bit noted earlier, for words ending in "-ing" the main part of the word stays unified and "-ing" goes by itself. For case: sing-ing not si-nging (that one might be obvious); glid-ing not gli-ding. This is also an exception to cases where 2 different consonants might otherwise easily carve up up two syllables: information technology should be stand-ing not stan-ding.

Climb Ev-er-y Mountain?
How almost words with lots of letters squished into one syllable, and words that can exist sung with different numbers of syllables depending on how you practise it? An case of both quandaries at once is every. Is it three syllables: ev-er-y, or two? There is no simple rule here: it comes down to the composer'south/arranger'southward choice. If yous desire the vocalizer to utilize ii syllables, and then should you write it ever-y, or ev-ery? Collective wisdom suggests ev-ery, but opinions may vary. Or every bit some older editions might take it: ev'-ry.

How about "gathering"? It should probably be get together-ing, fifty-fifty though the starting time syllable seems to have ii syllables, a vocaliser will likely sing information technology in two syllables as "gath-band". Merely don't write information technology that way. Or maybe it should exist an exception to the "ing" dominion: "gath-ering." You make up one's mind!

Once more, syllabification is an fine art, not a scientific discipline. Just be sensitive to the problems that can ascend, expect at a lot of scores (peculiarly professionally published ones), and go along in heed these few basic principles. Nasty syllabification problems may exist amidst the things that keep Mary Poppins awake at nighttime, but at least nosotros tin can agree on how many syllables supercalifragilisticexpialidocious has.