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2.3.2 Aligning lyrics to a melody

Music Glossary:melisma,extender line.

The next line in the nursery rhyme isThe moon dothshine as bright as day. Let’s extend it:

<<  \relative {    \key g \major    \time 6/8    d''4 b8 c4 a8 | d4 b8 g4 g8 |    a4 b8 c b a | d4 b8 g4. |  }  \addlyrics {    Girls and boys come out to play,    The moon doth shine as bright as day;  }>>

Looking at the music, we see that the extra lyrics do not alignproperly with the notes. The wordshine should be sungon two notes, not one. This is called amelisma, asingle syllable sung to more than one note. There are severalways to spread a syllable over multiple notes, the simplest beingto add a slur across them, for details, seeTies and slurs:

<<  \relative {    \key g \major    \time 6/8    d''4 b8 c4 a8 | d4 b8 g4 g8 |    a4 b8 c( b) a | d4 b8 g4. |  }  \addlyrics {    Girls and boys come out to play,    The moon doth shine as bright as day;  }>>

The words now line up correctly with the notes, but the automaticbeaming for the notes aboveshine as does not look right.We can correct this by inserting manual beaming commands to overridethe automatic beaming here, for details, seeAutomatic and manual beams.

<<  \relative {    \key g \major    \time 6/8    d''4 b8 c4 a8 | d4 b8 g4 g8 |    a4 b8 c([ b]) a | d4 b8 g4. |  }  \addlyrics {    Girls and boys come out to play,    The moon doth shine as bright as day;  }>>

As an alternative to using slurs, the melismata may be indicatedin just the lyrics by using an underscore_ for each notethat should be included in the melisma:

<<  \relative {    \key g \major    \time 6/8    d''4 b8 c4 a8 | d4 b8 g4 g8 |    a4 b8 c[ b] a | d4 b8 g4. |  }  \addlyrics {    Girls and boys come out to play,    The moon doth shine _ as bright as day;  }>>

If a syllable extends over several notes or a single very longnote anextender line is usually drawn from thesyllable extending under all the notes for that syllable. It isentered as two underscores__. Here is an example from thefirst three bars ofDido’s Lament, from Purcell’sDido and Æneas:

<<  \relative {    \key g \minor    \time 3/2    g'2 a bes | bes2( a) b2 |    c4.( bes8 a4. g8 fis4.) g8 | fis1  }  \addlyrics {    When I am laid,    am laid __ in earth,  }>>

None of the examples so far have involved words containing morethan one syllable. Such words are usually split one syllable to anote, with hyphens between syllables. Such hyphens are entered astwo dashes, resulting in a centered hyphen between the syllables.Here is an example showing this and everything we have learned sofar about aligning lyrics to notes.

<<  \relative {    \key g \major    \time 3/4    \partial 4    d'4 | g4 g a8( b) | g4 g b8( c) |    d4 d e | c2  }  \addlyrics {    A -- way in a __ man -- ger,    no __ crib for a bed,  }>>

Some lyrics, especially those in Italian, require the opposite:setting more than one syllable to a single note. This isachieved by linking the syllables together with a singleunderscore_ (with no spaces), or enclosing them in quotes.Here’s an example from Rossini’sFigaro, whereal has to be sung on the same note as thego ofLargo in Figaro’s ariaLargo al factotum:

<<  \relative {    \clef "bass"    \key c \major    \time 6/8    c'4.~ 8 d b | c8([ d]) b c d b | c8  }  \addlyrics {    Lar -- go_al fac -- to -- tum del -- la cit -- tà  }>>

See also

Notation Reference:Vocal music.

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