Re: Combining voices in American Hymns

[David Wright]

On Tue 13 Sep 2016 at 20:42:16 (-0600), David F. wrote:
> 
> On Sep 8, 2016, at 8:52 AM, David Wright <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > There's another "feature" of American hymn books illustrated on
> > http://www.hymnary.org/text/amazing_grace_how_sweet_the_sound#pagescans
> > which I haven't seen any mention of before, and only noticed recently
> > when thumbing my way through a hymnbook during a boring hymn.
> > 
> > We're used to seeing lyrics left-aligned when under a melisma, but
> > centred under the note otherwise. However, some hymnbooks left-align
> > the first lyric on each printed line regardless.
> > 
> > The second hymn from the left, which is a link to
> > http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/G32011/page/484
> > shows this. I don't want it, but can LP do this automatically?
> 
> Ah, yes. It would be nice if Lilypond could be coaxed to do that.
> 
> Also, I’ve noticed that hymnals will often place line breaks inside a measure 
> when the song begins with a partial measure, such that subsequent lines also 
> begin with the same partial measure.  This typically also corresponds to the 
> beginning of a poetic line.
> 
> For example, in this attached version of Amazing Grace, I’d prefer the first 
> line to include first two beats of bar 7 (corresponding to the word “me!” in 
> the first verse).
> 
> I know I can do this by hand, but it would be great if I could tell Lilypond 
> to take an initial partial measure into account when breaking lines.

I do this a lot, and use the following, where this particular
hymn is rather unusual; 12 12 8 8 is rare, and we didn't want
to coerce a 6 6 6 6 4 4 4 4. (Time signatures not printed.)

breaks = {
  s2. s1 s1 s2.
  \bar "" \break
  s2. s1 s1 s2.
  \bar "" \break
  s2. * 4
  \bar "" \break
}

global = {
  \key bf \major
  \time 8/4
  \partial 2.
  s2.
  s1 s1
  \time 6/4
  s1.
  \time 8/4
  s1 s1
  \time 6/4
  s1. s1.
  \time 4/4
  s1 s1 s1 s2.
  \bar "|."
}

\score {
  \transpose f f
  \new GrandStaff <<
    \new Staff <<
      \breaks
      { \clef treble \global }
      \new NullVoice = valign { \align }
      \new Lyrics \lyricsto valign { \texti }
      \new Lyrics \lyricsto valign { \textiii }
      \new Lyrics \lyricsto valign { \textiv }
      \new Voice { \voiceOne \soprano }
      \new Voice { \voiceTwo \alto }
    >>
    \new Staff <<
      { \clef bass \global }
      \new Voice { \voiceOne \tenor }
      \new Voice { \voiceTwo \bass }
    >>
  >>
  \layout { }
}

Usually, \breaks is a \repeat unfold N-1 { S } where
S might be s1 * 4 and N is the number of lines.

Cheers,
David.