Lyrics and SATB parts

Lyrics

Lyrics are entered from the Words tab, one syllable per note, and render directly under the note they belong to. Alignment is automatic — a syllable stays with its note through re-barring, line breaks and page breaks, because it’s keyed to the note rather than to a position.

A few things that follow from that:

• Split words across notes where the melody does. Each syllable is its own entry, so A-ma-zing occupies three notes and stays that way.
• A held note keeps one syllable. When a note is split at a bar line into a tied pair, the syllable stays on the head — the onset — because that’s where the word is sung.
• Multiple verses stack under the music. Every verse is sung to the same notes: the Verse buttons choose which line you are typing, and + adds one.
• A syllable sung over several notes has its word under the first of them. Leave the others blank.

Typing the words

Press Edit lyrics. The cursor goes under the note you had selected, or under the first note.

• Type a syllable, then press Space. The cursor moves to the next note.
• A hyphen splits a word. Type Morn- and the cursor moves on, with the hyphen kept on the syllable it ends.
• Backspace in an empty box goes back one note. Tab and Enter move on as Space does.
• To leave a note without a syllable, because the one before it is held, press Space in its empty box.
• For two words under one note, type + where the space goes.

You can also paste a whole line into a box. It is spread over the notes from there on, one syllable each: a space ends a word, a hyphen splits one, _ leaves a note without a syllable, and a Chinese character takes a note of its own. If the words run past the end of the part, the editor says how many were left over. One Undo takes the line back.

While the words are being edited, the note keys are off: a letter typed outside a box changes nothing. Done editing turns them back on.

Building an SATB score

Layout tab → SATB turns a single melody into a four-part score: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, with part labels on the left and bar lines aligned down the system. Your melody becomes the Soprano, and the three new voices start as one rest in every bar. One Undo takes them back.

Two ways to fill the other three voices:

1. Write them yourself. Click the first rest of the voice, then type. Each note takes the length you chose and no more: what is left of the bar stays a rest with the cursor on it, so m d m m fills one bar of four beats, and - holds the note you just typed. You can also copy a line from another voice and paste it onto a rest. It lands on that beat, in place of the rests. Or type the whole line as text: click the voice’s name, then Create → Paste notation, type m d m m | f m d - and press Add to Alto (the button names the voice).
2. Harmonize with AI. AI tab → Enhance → Harmonize to SATB takes your melody and writes a four-part arrangement under it, voice-led for real choirs, carrying the lyrics across.

For guzheng and other two-hand instruments, Layout → 2 staves names the parts Right hand and Left hand instead.

Bars are locked across parts

This is the rule that keeps a multi-part score readable, and it’s worth stating plainly because it surprises people who expect each staff to be independent:

A bar exists in every part or in none. Insert a bar and every voice gets one. Delete a bar and it goes from every voice. New parts are padded with bars of rests so they start the same length as the others.

Without that, deleting a bar from the soprano line would slide every later bar one place left in that voice only — and the aligned grid the renderer draws would stop matching the data underneath. What looks like a tidy edit becomes a score where bar 12 in the soprano is bar 11 everywhere else.

So, to take music out of one voice without disturbing the others:

• Delete on a note turns it into a rest of the same length. The bar keeps its beats; the other parts don’t move.
• Press Delete again on that rest and the time itself is removed.
• − Bar in the Layout tab is the deliberate “remove this bar everywhere”.

Different voices in different sections

A hymn is rarely one voicing from beginning to end: the verse is SATB, the refrain drops to unison, the bridge is three parts. Layout → Voices sets which voices the section under the cursor is written for, and the rest drop off those lines — in the editor, in a shared link and on the printed sheet. Sections… beside it opens the same thing as a table, every section of the piece against every voice, which is the view worth having when you’re laying the whole structure out.

Sections come from the headings you type on the Words tab (“Bait 1”, “Refren”), plus any bar where you change the voices without naming it.

Three things follow from the rule above, and they’re what make this safe:

• It doesn’t remove a part from the score. Bars are locked across parts, so a section says which voices are written here, not which voices exist. The bass is still there for the verse.
• A voice that has music is never hidden. Turning one off clears its bars in that section as it goes, in a single undo — so what you see is what happened, rather than notes surviving out of sight.
• A change of voicing starts a new line. A system draws one set of staves across its whole width, so the refrain can’t share a line with the verse it follows. That’s how it’s engraved on paper too.

A score that never sets this behaves exactly as before: every voice, every line.

Rehearsing one section

Once you have parts, the Instruments control (beside the play button, and in the Score tab on a phone) gives each voice its own instrument, plus M to mute and S to solo.

That’s the sectional-rehearsal tool: mute the alto line and the altos sing it themselves against the other three, or solo the tenors to drill an awkward entry. Mute and solo are session-only — they change what you hear now, not what the score is or what anyone else opening the link will hear.

Where to go next

• Playing your score back — voices, tempo and the singing voice.
• SATB arranging in solfa — how to write the inner parts.