Reference Guide

1040
Notation and lyrics
Working with lyrics
Working with lyrics
SONAR lets you create, edit, and display lyrics, the words and syllables associated with notes in a
track. Lyrics can be the words to a song, the text of a vocal passage, a narration to be read along
with the music, cues of some type, or text totally unrelated to the music. Each word or syllable in the
lyrics must be associated with a note in a MIDI track. Each MIDI track can have its own lyrics.
Although lyrics can logically be associated with digital audio data, you cannot actually place lyrics in
an audio track. If you want to create lyrics for an audio track, you must create an auxiliary MIDI track
to hold the lyrics.
You can enter and edit lyrics in several ways:
• Using the Lyrics mode in the Staff view
• Using the Lyrics view
• Inserting lyric events in the Event List view
The Staff view is usually the preferred location for entering lyrics, since you can see the notes with
which the lyrics are associated. The Lyrics view can also be used for entering or editing lyrics, but its
main strength is that it can display lyrics in a larger, more readable format. You might use the Lyrics
view to display song lyrics during recording and playback, so performers can see the words and sing
along. You can make the font size in the Lyrics view as large as desired, so that the lyrics can be
read at a distance from the monitor. During playback, the current line in the lyrics is enclosed in a
box and the current word is highlighted.
Lyric events are similar to text events. Like any other event, they occur at a particular time. They
contain text, just like general-purpose text events, but generally they contain only a single word (or
syllable of a word). As events, Lyrics can be edited in the Event List view (see “The Event List view”
on page 718).
See:
“Adding and editing lyrics in the Staff view” on page 1041
“Opening the Lyrics view” on page 1042
“Adding and editing lyrics in the Lyrics view” on page 1042