Lyrics are entered in a special input mode. This mode is is introduced
by the keyword \lyrics
. In this mode you can enter lyrics, with
punctuation and accents without any hassle. Syllables are entered like
notes, but with pitches replaced by text. For example,
\lyrics { Twin-4 kle4 twin- kle litt- le star2 }
A word in Lyrics mode begins with: an alphabetic character, _
,
?
, !
, :
, '
, the control characters ^A
through ^F
, ^Q
through ^W
, ^Y
, ^^
,
any 8-bit character with ASCII code over 127, or a two-character
combination of a backslash followed by one of `
, '
,
"
, or ^
.
Subsequent characters of a word can be any character that is not a digit
and not white space. One important consequence of this is that a word
can end with }
. The following example is usually a bug. The
syllable includes a }
, and hence the opening brace is not balanced:
\lyrics { twinkle}
Similarly, a period following a alphabetic sequence, is included in the
resulting string. As a consequence, spaces must be inserted around
\property
commands:
\property Lyrics . LyricText \set #'font-shape = #'italic
Any _
character which appears in an unquoted word is converted
to a space. This provides a mechanism for introducing spaces into words
without using quotes. Quoted words can also be used in Lyrics mode to
specify words that cannot be written with the above rules:
\lyrics { He said: "\"Let" my peo ple "go\"" }
Hyphens can be entered as ordinary hyphens at the end of a syllable, i.e.
soft- ware
These will be attached to the end of the first syllable.
Centered hyphens are entered using the special `-
-
' lyric
as a separate word between syllables. The hyphen will have variable
length depending on the space between the syllables and it will be
centered between the syllables.
When a lyric is sung over many notes (this is called a melisma), this is
indicated with a horizontal line centered between a syllable and the
next one. Such a line is called an extender line, and it is entered as
__
.
The definition of lyrics mode is too complex.
This page is for LilyPond-2.0.1 (stable-branch).