3.8 Printing lyrics

Lyrics are entered by separating each syllable with a space, and surrounding them with \lyrics { ... }, for example,

       \lyrics { I want to break free }

Like notes, lyrics are also a form of music, but they must not be printed on a staff, which is the default way to print music. To print them as lyrics, they must be marked with \new Lyrics:

       \new Lyrics  \lyrics { I want to break free }

The melody for this song is as follows:

The lyrics can be set to these notes, combining both with the \addlyrics keyword:

      \addlyrics
         \notes { ... }
         \new Lyrics ...

The final result is

     \score  {
      \notes {
       \addlyrics
        \relative c' {
          \partial 8
          c8
          \times 2/3 { f g g } \times 2/3 { g4( a2) }
        }
        \new Lyrics  \lyrics { I want to break free }
      }
      \paper{ }
     }

This melody ends on a melisma, a single syllable (“free”) sung to more than one note. This is indicated with an extender line. It is entered as two underscores, i.e.

       \lyrics { I want to break free __ }

Similarly, hyphens between words can be entered as two dashes, resulting in a centered hyphen between two syllables:

       Twin -- kle twin -- kle

More options, like putting multiple lines of lyrics below a melody are discussed in Vocal music.

This page is for LilyPond-2.0.3 (stable-branch). Report errors to <bug-lilypond@gnu.org>.