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Is there a way in LilyPond to simply list the lyrics corresponding to additional verses after the end of the music, with one paragraph per verse?

(N.B. This exact question has been asked before, in 2001, but the first answer ("read this book") references a dead URL, while the second (use \context Lyrics) does not work for me, I get LilyPond syntax errors.)

Here's a song under which I want to write the additional verses.

\header{
  title = "Hello World"
}

\score {
  \relative {
    \time 2/4
    \clef treble
    \key a \major
    cis''2 | a4 fis \bar "|."
  }
  \addlyrics { 
    He -- | llo world
  }
  \layout { }
  \midi { }
}

\version "2.18.2"

(Sorry about the syntax highlighting, <!-- language: lang-lilypond --> is not yet supported in the Google Code Prettyfier that SO uses.)

I'd like to add verses 2, 3, and 4 underneath, separated from the music, just as words.

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dumbledad
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    It'd be great to know why I got a down-vote so that I can improve the question – dumbledad Jan 16 '16 at 14:06
  • IMHO this is not a programming question suitable for SO but is a question on how to use a specific application. (and no, I didn't down vote) – Peter M Jan 16 '16 at 14:10
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    But LilyPond is a programming language to produce engraved musical scores, and this is a question about how to use it. No? Andrew Cashner's comment on [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/q/30678473/575530) argues the case. But I'll [ask it on the other SE too](http://music.stackexchange.com/q/41122/2125) and see if that's more appropriate. – dumbledad Jan 16 '16 at 14:29
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    That's a big philosophical question. But the more I think about it the more I agree with you. I was going to say that this is the musical equivalent of asking what WordPerfect markup codes are needed to render a table, but when I thought `codes` and `render` I segued to HTML/CSS rendering which made my own argument moot! I'm guessing that it is more of a familiarity issue of what is code and what is a compiler type thing (And I know all about of SO groupthink). Perhaps you could recast your example with lyrics of `Hello World` - as what you have is not minimal as per Lilypond docs – Peter M Jan 16 '16 at 14:47
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    Also you might be better off asking at http://tex.stackexchange.com There are currently 51 Lilypond questions there – Peter M Jan 16 '16 at 14:53
  • Brilliant - [one](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/lilypond), [two](http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/lilypond), [three](http://superuser.com/search?q=lilypond), and now [four](http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/lilypond) SEs. I'm often reminded that the most exciting work is at the intersection of things. LilyPond is certainly that! – dumbledad Jan 16 '16 at 14:57

1 Answers1

11

I got an answer from Knute Snortum on the LiliyPond mailing list here

After my score block I can add a markup block like this

\markup {
    \column {
        \line { \null }
        \line { 2. Here I go }
    }
}

It turns out that this is covered in the LilyPond documentation (printing stanzas at the end) but they use the term 'stanza' and so my searching for 'verse' did not lead me there.

(It is also worth noting this discussion on meta. Posting LilyPond questions here is likely to lead to down-votes since it is not considered programming by many of the SO community. A better Stack Exchange site to post LilyPond questions to is the Music: Practice and Theory Stack Exchange, though, as I found, the LilyPond mailing list is currently the place most likely to elicit full and prompt answers.)

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    I'm a former professional computer programmer and a current professional singer, LilyPond is absolutely a programming language, Not *general* purpose, of course, but within music, it is indeed general purpose, Sheesh. – aliteralmind Jan 06 '17 at 04:49