I’m working on some music that has multiple verses, and sometimes it’s desirable to have certain lyrics positioned between notes and rests (for example, a second verse with extra syllables). I can enter such a lyric by moving the Note Input caret to the desired position and pressing Shift+L, or via copy/paste, but it will only be spaced correctly if a note or rest exists in that rhythmic position (on any staff). If there isn’t, those lyrics do not get considered in horizontal spacing, and they end up overlapping adjacent lyrics.
I would like to avoid the visual complexity of a second voice just to show a slightly different rhythm. I suppose I could create hidden, stemless, muted notes at those rhythmic positions, though. Anyone have any better ideas?
If you want to have fairly tight horizontal spacing, you could consider putting both words in a single lyric item, using shift-alt-space. Of course this might not look good if one verse has two notes with long single-syllable words like “scratched through” and the other has three short words like “I am in” for the same two notes.
I think I am right in saying that you can insert lyrics where there is no note by putting the caret at the rhythmic position where you want to place the lyric (of course you have to have the grid set at a suitable level), then activating the lyrics popover, selecting the appropriate verse, and Bob’s your uncle. I’m not at my computer at the moment, but I seem to recall doing something like this with the wonderful Figurato.
Michael, the OP is already aware of that.
Michael, you can do that, but unless there is a note or rest at that rhythmic position the lyric doesn’t affect the horizontal spacing, because space is only a property of “note columns” and the gaps between them. That’s what the problem is here.
The simple solution to all this is just add some notes in another voice to show the rhythm, but the OP doesn’t want to do that for whatever reason.
Having noteless lyrics floating between notes requires the singer to visualize the missing notation, to a lesser or greater degree - assuming they know how to read music. This contributes to “inattentive driving” as I see it. Having a second voice when needed seems a bit easier to read, to me.
Is it practical to write out the second verse, anotherwords write out the repeat?