Cumbersom Lyrics Entry
I love Musescore dearly, and appreciate so very much all the effort that has gone into its development by so many people.
Most of the work I do in scoring software focuses on songs with lyrics. I would like to call your attention to the model for lyrics entry in Guitar Pro 6, which I was using before Musescore. Having worked with lyric entry in Musescore now enough to feel pretty comfortable with it, I have to say that the model used in Guitar Pro is vastly easier to work with, and much more flexible.
In Guitar Pro I select a mode of lyrics entry. I can then copy in an entire verse of lyrics from a textfile; in fact, I can copy in 10 verses if I like, then very quickly use copy and paste operations (one for each verse) to distribute the pasted text into 10 different verse lines.
Synchronization of the lyrics with the notes is accomplished by adding extra spaces or certain other characters wherever a given word needs to span more than a single note. Hyphens function as in Musescore to divide words into syllables that will be linked to different notes.
I can copy/paste an entire new version of a verse in a single operation, then quickly work my way through the text to enter the needed hyphens and extra spaces to sync it to the notes.
At the moment I preparing the score for a song that has 12 verses. Getting the lyrics into the score in Musescore is taking me probably 10 to 20 times what it would in Guitar Pro. So I think Guitar Pro would be a great place to look for a possible feature enhancement in this area.
I also find note entry in Guitar Pro quite a bit easier and quicker, but that's a topic for a different post.
Comments
Do you know that you can also copy paste lyrics in MuseScore from a text file? If the text file has been prepared with proper hyphenation it should be pretty quick. If your lyrics are in english, you can use http://juiciobrennan.com/hyphenator/ to prepare them even quicker.
(I can't find this in the handbook, if anyone feel like extending the lyrics page, be my guest !)
In reply to Do you know that you can also by [DELETED] 5
I've added a subheading and introductory text to the handbook page on lyrics. Details to follow …
In reply to Do you know that you can also by [DELETED] 5
>> Do you know that you can also copy paste lyrics in MuseScore from a text file?
The lyrics page also says that, but it neglects to say how one does it. So ... how does one do it?
In reply to >> Do you know that you can by manonash
Oh, I see: I found it here: https://musescore.org/en/node/21522
That's very helpful, and I appreciate your calling my attention to it.
It is, however, still much more cumbersome than the Guitar Pro model, where you simply operate on the entire set of lyrics for the verse by adding spaces where necessary. In the Musescore model you're pasting blind, and can't complete the paste until you handled every single twiddle of the spacing issues. (You can't paste in the entire lyric, then push words right from the cursor forward by entering a space.)
In reply to Do you know that you can also by [DELETED] 5
Comments on the Lyrics page:
>> Two syllables under a note can be joined with an elision character, also known as a "lyric slur" or "synalepha". <<
It seems easier just to use CTRL+hyphen or CTRL+space to put two words (or two syllables separated by a hyphen) under a single note.
>> To select lyrics for a range of notes, first select the range of notes (click first note, shift+click last), then right click a lyric and choose Select / All Similar Elements in Range Selection. Now use the Inspector to adjust the lyrics. <<
Why not just enable click first word, shift+click last word to do the same thing?
Would the idea discussed at https://musescore.org/en/node/47721 be helpful?
In reply to Would the idea discussed at by Isaac Weiss
Yes, indeed it would. That sounds very similar to the Guitar Pro model, but even improves it a bit with the Normal/Rhythm mode business. Glad to know it's there. Thanks, Isaac!
In reply to Yes, indeed it would. That by manonash
To be clear, it didn't get very far beyond the idea stage. The guy who started work on it is currently working on real-time MIDI keyboard entry, without much time to devote to other areas. But this may be one to return to when that's finished.