What is the best way to make more room horizontally for lyrics? I have two syllable words that look like they are one syllable words (ie no hyphen visible) , and I am not sure the best way to space them or if there is some special property I don't understand?
-Molly
Since I had the same issue, I did a bunch of testing and settled on a suite of global overrides for lyrics in my scores. I've found these to be very helpful in my own cases. Of course, if you don't want to use one or more of these, feel free to not use them! These were tuned with my eye against other scores that I thought looked very nice. Because they force some space in between words and around hyphens, your music will get spread out a little, so just be aware of that.
\layout {
\context Lyrics {
\override LyricHyphen.padding = #0.15
\override LyricHyphen.length = #0.6
\override LyricHyphen.minimum-length = #0.66
\override LyricHyphen.minimum-distance = #1
\override LyricHyphen.thickness = 2.0
\override LyricHyphen.dash-period = 8.0
\override LyricExtender.minimum-length = #0
\override LyricExtender.right-padding = #0.5
\override LyricSpace.minimum-distance = #1
}
}
This can be put inside or outside the \score block, depending on where you want them to influence.
HTH,
Abraham