The melisma filter can be used to analyze the relation between notes and syllables in music.

The default behavior of the filter is to highlight notes for all syllables that have two or more notes:

Set a minimum note count

The -m option can be used to set the minimum number of notes that will be marked as a melisma. The default value is 2 notes, this can be raised. Here is an example which set the minimum to 3, causing the first two words to no longer be marked as melismas:

Display melisma counts

The -r option can be used to replace the lyrics with the note counts for each syllable:

Re-run the melisma filter to highlight melisma notes:

Command-line options

The -a option will calculate the average note-to-syllable ratio for identified melisma syllables.

The -p option will calculate note-to-syllable ratios by part.

The -w option will list words in the music that contain a melisma.