I create scores for players who are not necessarily “reading” the notes (they play from memory, for example). Sometimes I want to make a concise lead sheet, even though the melody and rhythm varies drastically between verses. Usually the verses are similar “enough” that I can fudge a lyric here and there, but sometimes the difference is just too great. Since I know my students are singing from memory (fine with me!) I’d like to be able to input lyrics freely in, say, verses 2, 3, and 4.
I know that I can input lyric text at the carat, even if there is not a note present, but this method is very time-consuming for a whole verse, as one has to move the cursor and invoke the carat for each syllable where one wants to place text.
I tried inputting a whole verse of eighth notes in an unused voice and attaching the lyrics to this, advancing the popover with the right arrow key when I want to skip. I then suppress playback, and then select the voice and hide the stems and noteheads. This works fairly well, but I have to go in and remove many of the extender lines where a syllable crosses multiple notes. Also, there are some formatting issues that affect the first voice.
Is there another way to go about this, in your experience? If so, what has worked for you?
