<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <!-- header_tag --> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Automatic syllable durations - GNU LilyPond Notation Reference</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="description" content="GNU LilyPond Notation Reference"> <meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.11"> <link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> <link rel="up" href="Aligning-lyrics-to-a-melody.html#Aligning-lyrics-to-a-melody" title="Aligning lyrics to a melody"> <link rel="next" href="Manual-syllable-durations.html#Manual-syllable-durations" title="Manual syllable durations"> <link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> <!-- Copyright (C) 1999--2007 by the authors Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections. 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This is achieved by combining the melody and the lyrics with the <code>\lyricsto</code> expression <pre class="example">\new Lyrics \lyricsto <var>name</var> ... </pre> <p>This aligns the lyrics to the notes of the <a name="index-Voice-1889"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/Voice.html#Voice">Voice</a> context called <var>name</var>, which must already exist. Therefore normally the <code>Voice</code> is specified first, and then the lyrics are specified with <code>\lyricsto</code>. The command <code>\lyricsto</code> switches to <code>\lyricmode</code> mode automatically, so the <code>\lyricmode</code> keyword may be omitted. <p>The following example uses different commands for entering lyrics. <blockquote> <pre class="verbatim"> << \new Voice = "one" \relative c'' { \autoBeamOff \time 2/4 c4 b8. a16 g4. f8 e4 d c2 } % not recommended: left aligns syllables \new Lyrics \lyricmode { Joy4 to8. the16 world!4. the8 Lord4 is come.2 } % wrong: durations needed \new Lyrics \lyricmode { Joy to the earth! the Sa -- viour reigns. } %correct \new Lyrics \lyricsto "one" { No more let sins and sor -- rows grow. } >> </pre> <p> <a href="../b3/lily-8b6cc752.ly"> <img align="middle" border="0" src="../b3/lily-8b6cc752.png" alt="[image of music]"> </a> </p> </blockquote> <p>The second stanza is not properly aligned because the durations were not specified. A solution for that would be to use <code>\lyricsto</code>. <p>The <code>\addlyrics</code> command is actually just a convenient way to write a more complicated LilyPond structure that sets up the lyrics. <pre class="example">{ MUSIC } \addlyrics { LYRICS } </pre> <p class="noindent">is the same as <pre class="example">\new Voice = "blah" { music } \new Lyrics \lyricsto "blah" { LYRICS } </pre> <!-- footer_tag --><br><hr> <div class="node"> <p> Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Manual-syllable-durations.html#Manual-syllable-durations">Manual syllable durations</a>, Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Aligning-lyrics-to-a-melody.html#Aligning-lyrics-to-a-melody">Aligning lyrics to a melody</a> </div> <div style="background-color: #e8ffe8; padding: 2; border: #c0ffc0 1px solid;"> <p> <font size="-1"> This page is for LilyPond-2.11.57 (development-branch). <br> <address> Report errors to <a href="http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.bugs">http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.bugs</a>. </address> <br> Your <a href="http://lilypond.org/web/devel/participating/documentation-adding">suggestions for the documentation</a> are welcome. </font> </p> </div> <P> Other languages: <a href="Automatic-syllable-durations.fr.html">français</a>, <a href="Automatic-syllable-durations.es.html">español</a>. <BR> </P> </BODY></html>