For note-based lyrics I enter chromatic harmonica tabs, which are simply numbers corresponding to the hole number on the harmonica. A positive number indicates a blow (exhale) and a negative number indicates a draw (inhale).
On the song I am currently working on I thought I would try using "Big Lyrics", so the people who read tabs rather than notes would have the current tab turn red -- and be bigger. I thought it would make the tabs easier to read.
However for some reason "Big Lyrics" removes all the negative signs, not only in the Big Lyrics display, but in the lyrics under the notes, too! It strips out all the negative signs. At first I thought I had somehow mistakenly not entered the negative signs, so I put them all back in and tried again. It just stripped them all out again.
I just hovered the mouse over the "L" that you click for note-based lyrics, and I see that it interprets a minus sign as the end of a syllable. That also explains why Big Lyrics groups the harmonica tab numbers in what appears to be a strange, random way (after removing the negative signs).
How do you add line-based lyrics? I found a YouTube video, but it tells you to enter lyrics in a region of the notation page that doesn't seem to exist in the 2018 edition.
Edit: just looked in the manual - line-based lyrics are gone in 2018. I will try bar-based lyrics. (but for actual lyrics, not harmonica tabs).
Line-based lyric are no longer used. These have been superseded by bar-based lyrics.
Also, while it might not be standard harmonica notation, it would be possible to use some symbol other than a hyphen to represent drawing rather than blowing. Symbols that spring to mind would be = (that's kind of like a two minuses), ^, >, *
I still can't figure out how to enter bar lyrics. the manual says: "To enter lyrics, you first need to display the Bar Lyrics layer by clicking on the [Chord Display] toolbar button and selecting Layers|Bar Lyrics."
I can't figure out what the chord display toolbar button is.
Line-based lyric are no longer used. These have been superseded by bar-based lyrics.
Also, while it might not be standard harmonica notation, it would be possible to use some symbol other than a hyphen to represent drawing rather than blowing. Symbols that spring to mind would be = (that's kind of like a two minuses), ^, >, *
Regards, Noel
Thanks Noel.
Perhaps an equal sign might work. But an * wouldn't work because that is used after a number to indicate that the slide button (which raised a note by half a tone) is to be engaged.
I think using a different symbol might not work too well. People who read tabs are used to the standard notation. Imagine how confusing it would be if a change was made in regular music notation.
One thing you can try is to fake the "minus" sign by using an extended ASCII character. I can't try it in BIAB right now, but it works in Windows NotePad.
Instead of typing a "minus" (-) character, instead, hold down the Alt key and type 196 on the numeric keypad, then let up the Alt key. The resulting character will be wider than a normal hyphen, but I would think it would work.
Just a thought.
John
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