Question about lyrics
Moderators: Peter Thomsen, miker
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Hi everyone,
I am setting a choir piece and I finger poked with the Document Settings > Lyrics.
Could someone suggest what the best settings are for alignment and justification? See picture of my settings which I have finger poked.
Your assistance would be appreciated, as I cannot recall what the default Finale settings were for these particular options, and my current settings look a little bit hard to sightread
Many thanks,
Hector Pascal.
I am setting a choir piece and I finger poked with the Document Settings > Lyrics.
Could someone suggest what the best settings are for alignment and justification? See picture of my settings which I have finger poked.
Your assistance would be appreciated, as I cannot recall what the default Finale settings were for these particular options, and my current settings look a little bit hard to sightread
Many thanks,
Hector Pascal.
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First of all: Justification settings mostly relate to more than one verse: they control how two lyrics on the syllable line up with each other. So if you're not doing verses, you can usually ignore those. (However, for some reason, left justify with centre align can displace notes somewhat.)
Alignment settings affect how the syllable sits under the note. Generally, I would suggest its best to have all syllables centred, except for syllables with word extensions, which are usually ranged left. This is what Gould recommends.
If you are doing verses, then I would suggest that syllables would look best justified by centre, with the exception of the first one on each system and at the very beginning. (And also those with word extensions.)
You can always check Finale's defaults by loading the Maestro Default File, which seem to correspond with what I've said:
Alignment settings affect how the syllable sits under the note. Generally, I would suggest its best to have all syllables centred, except for syllables with word extensions, which are usually ranged left. This is what Gould recommends.
If you are doing verses, then I would suggest that syllables would look best justified by centre, with the exception of the first one on each system and at the very beginning. (And also those with word extensions.)
You can always check Finale's defaults by loading the Maestro Default File, which seem to correspond with what I've said:
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- Peter Thomsen
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It is not clear to me whether you with your words “hard to sightread” mean the lyrics (= text) or the music (= rhythmic notation)?Hector Pascal wrote:… my current settings look a little bit hard to sightread …
If you are trying to make the lyric spacing distort the music spacing as little as possible, then you should probably try something like this:
However, no matter what settings you use, you can not avoid having to adjust individual syllables.
Manual adjustment of individual syllables is a normal part of the job - it “comes with the territory”.
Mac OS X 12.6.9 (Monterey), Finale user since 1996
- zuill
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I believe alignment refers to the position of the syllable handle to the note, and justification refers to the position of the syllable to its handle.
Zuill
Zuill
Windows 10, Finale 2011-v26.3.1
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
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As said, justification is most notable when you have more than one verse, as it affects how the syllables in each verse line up together (vertically). As Zuill points out, it affects where the anchor point is. For most situations in single-line lyrics, this doesn't change anything, except left justified with centre aligned, which pushes the notes forward, for the syllable to sit to the left of it.miker wrote:And this brings up a question that confuses me: what's the difference between Alignment and Justification?
Alignment is where the syllable sits under the note: I'm intruiged that Peter says Left Left for "Others". I would have thought centred is the way to go. Gould advises against going left, except for melismas.
Last edited by BuonTempi on Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- zuill
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One can manually adjust the settings for any given syllable, to fine tune things. There is a caveat: all verses attached to one note share the same manual setting. One can still nudge syllables individually under the same note, but they still share the alignment and justification settings. I recall a discussion about this recently, and it was suggested as a feature request to change this behavior to allow individual settings for each syllable under one note.
Zuill
Zuill
Windows 10, Finale 2011-v26.3.1
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
- MikeHalloran
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... like many of the simpler notation products do (Encore comes to mind). I'm in the "looks good—is good" school when it comes to alignment.zuill wrote:One can manually adjust the settings for any given syllable, to fine tune things. There is a caveat: all verses attached to one note share the same manual setting. One can still nudge syllables individually under the same note, but they still share the alignment and justification settings. I recall a discussion about this recently, and it was suggested as a feature request to change this behavior to allow individual settings for each syllable under one note.
Zuill
That would be a welcome feature in Finale. My preference would be to be able to override the settings on any syllable, perhaps with the Control key, so you could nudge an individual syllable without affecting anything else.
Mike Halloran
Finale 27.3, SmartScore X2 Pro, GPO5 & World Instruments
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Finale 27.3, SmartScore X2 Pro, GPO5 & World Instruments
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- miker
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Mike,
You can easily shift individual syllables. Make sure you're in the correct verse/layer, and drag the syllable with the mouse. Hold down the Shift key, to constrain it to horizontal.
You can easily shift individual syllables. Make sure you're in the correct verse/layer, and drag the syllable with the mouse. Hold down the Shift key, to constrain it to horizontal.
Finale 27 | SmartScorePro 64
Mac OS 13.2.1 Ventura
Copyist for Barbershop Harmony Society
Mac OS 13.2.1 Ventura
Copyist for Barbershop Harmony Society
- Perotinus
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Here's a query on this issue: if you do not have word extensions turned on (for whatever reason), will the syllable alignment preferences still left-align the syllable by recognizing that the next note has no syllable beneath it?
Perotinus
Finale 27.3
Windows 10 Enterprise
Finale 27.3
Windows 10 Enterprise
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By the way: Many thanks for all your help, everyone. I have reset the justification and alignment to the default settings, looks much better.
As some of you have suggested, I will do a fine tuning of the syllables at the end of the job, too. Regarding nudging with mouse, I also find that nudging the syllables with the arrow keys helps with making precise adjustments.
Best wishes,
Hector.
As some of you have suggested, I will do a fine tuning of the syllables at the end of the job, too. Regarding nudging with mouse, I also find that nudging the syllables with the arrow keys helps with making precise adjustments.
Best wishes,
Hector.