Unmetered passage within a piece
I'm transcribing a piece that was prob written in Sibelius. There is a passage for a cantor to sing unmetered. In the attached shot, the page leads in from a 3/2 meter and after the dotted barline, the cantor goes at his own pace. The chorus changes pitch when he hits certain words, and the spacing between them is irregular. Note where "whole" notes cover different numbers of syllables. Is there a measure property to do this, or another notation that accomplishes the same effect in MU4 (4.2.1)? I saw the article in the Handbook on Early Music (note values across barlines), but that style setting appears to apply only to an entire score.
Thanks - R
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Comments
Use the measure properties and change the actual duration to allow enough space
In reply to Use the measure properties… by Jojo-Schmitz
Thanks for the suggestion. I went ahead and used the "over barlines" setting just to see what it would do. The result was a little weird but worked for this: it keeps the type of note you specified even if it carries over the bar. That prevents it from creating two tied notes, but it also leaves space in the following measure. Werks for me. I have some ideas in mind for how to align the "whole" note background in the chorus so it aligns with the cantor's syllable changes as written.
- R
In reply to Thanks for the suggestion. I… by Hitchcock1939
I suspect you'll find that setting the measure length to a larger value will work better. Simply set the measure to have a length of, for example, 20 whole notes. Then put 20 notes and the 20 words that correspond. Experiment to find the right numbers of notes/words.
I haven't found a top value for it (I quit trying after I put 100 whole notes on a row :-), but you simply can't fit more than about 20 words onto whole notes in a single system. Oddly, it seems to space smaller duration notes (quarters/eighths/etc.) wider. I ran out of space after only 17-18 quarter notes.
If your text has more words, just do the same to the next measure and make the barline at the end of each invisible.
In reply to I suspect you'll find that… by TheHutch
I'll try that as an alternative. It's always good to explore the boundaries of a software package; you never know if a feature (or bug...) intended for something else works for your intent. If you look at the picture of my source material, you will see that the chant passage has measure numbers on the top left of each system, indicating invisible bar lines. I suspect there is some feature of Sibelius that let the composer lay this out, with notes irregularly aligned. Thanks for responding to my question. - R
In reply to I'll try that as an… by Hitchcock1939
You can adjust the measure numbers too, and again via the measure properties