Re: Flexible lyric alignment

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Abraham,

(Great to see you on-list again!)

> It's been some time since I've posted anything here, but a recent project has 
> caused me to jump back into creating scores. I'm working on a relatively 
> simple choral piece with piano accompaniment and seeing all the ways the 
> lyric syllables mess up the horizontal spacing is... tolerable, but somewhat 
> irritating.

Do not get me started… This is something I started working with Janek on over a 
decade ago, and — as someone who deals almost exclusively with sung text (art 
song, choral music, musicals, operas, pop songs, etc.), this is The Thorn™.

> I'm not asking for perfect note spacing preservation, just less bad. Longer 
> syllables/words are, of course, more problematic (like in the attached 
> picture).
> 
> In my head, I envision a springs-and-rods type of function for the lyric's 
> attachment (self-alignment-X?) that increases in "stretchability" as the 
> syllable length gets larger so that it is more likely to move than others. 
> Thus, enabling the notes to be more correctly spaced.
> 
> Thoughts? I'm afraid my own Scheme skills aren't up to the task for this. I'm 
> also fully aware that I can adjust this manually at the problematic places. 
> I'd like to avoid that if possible, but will do that if needed.

Please let's talk with some Great Developers, figure out a good implementation, 
and get the ball [re]rolling! I'm sure some of Janek's work is applicable (at 
least conceptually, if not actualy code).

Best,
Kieren.