A lyric block holds a word. A syllable split divides that word into pieces, each sitting on its own beat. This is how you control the rhythm of a phrase.
What you'll learn
- What a syllable split is and why it matters for rhythm
- How to create splits using the scissors tool in Timeline view
- How to create splits by typing hyphens in Sheet view
- How compartments display split syllables on the beat grid
- How to drag dividers to adjust the timing of each syllable
- How cascade keeps syllable segments from collapsing
- How to remove splits and merge adjacent blocks
Chapter 7 covered the word tools that help you find the right words. This chapter is about what happens after you have the words: making them land in rhythm. A word like "beautiful" takes up one beat by default, but nobody sings it in one beat. It's three syllables: "beau-ti-ful." Syllable splits let you give each syllable its own position on the beat grid, so "beau" lands on beat 1, "ti" on the and of 1, and "ful" on beat 2. That's the difference between a lyric that sits flat and one that breathes.
8.1 What a syllable split is
A lyric block without splits is a single rectangle on the beat grid. It has one text, one beat position, and one duration. When you add a syllable split, the block divides into compartments: separate visual segments, each holding part of the word, each sitting on its own slice of the grid.
The underlying data stays in one block. The text is still stored as one clean word (no hyphens). But the split metadata records where the word divides (the character position) and where the divider sits in time (a ratio of the block's duration). The result is a word that looks and behaves like multiple pieces, while remaining a single unit that moves, resizes, and syncs as one.
Each compartment can carry its own melody note. A three-syllable word with two splits gives you three melody note slots. This is how melody follows syllable rhythm naturally: each syllable gets its own pitch. Chapter 10 covers melody input in detail.
8.2 Creating splits in Timeline view
The scissors tool
Hover over any lyric block in Timeline view and a small scissors icon (✂) appears above it. Click it to enter split mode. The block's interior lights up with thin vertical markers at every detected split point: word boundaries (if the block contains multiple words) and syllable boundaries within each word.
Song Cage detects syllable boundaries automatically using a rule-based algorithm. It analyzes vowel clusters and consonant patterns to find natural break points. "Beautiful" shows markers after "beau" and "ti." "Rising" shows a marker after "Ri." "Orleans" shows a marker after "Or." The detection handles common English patterns including silent-e endings, -ed suffixes, and vowel digraphs.
Click any marker to create a split at that point. The block immediately divides into compartments. You can click multiple markers to create more splits. Click the scissors button again to exit split mode.
Word boundaries vs syllable boundaries
The markers come in two styles:
- Word boundaries (at spaces) appear slightly bolder. These create a full word split: the block divides into two separate blocks, each with its own text.
- Syllable boundaries (within a word) appear thinner. These create a syllable split: the block stays as one block but gains compartments.
The distinction matters because word splits create independent blocks (each separately draggable and editable), while syllable splits create compartments within a single block (they move together as a unit, and each compartment carries one melody note).
8.3 Creating splits in Sheet view
In Sheet view, type a hyphen inside a word to create a syllable split. Type Ri-sing and Song Cage stores the clean text "Rising" with a split marker between the two syllables. Type beau-ti-ful for two splits and three compartments.
When you commit the text (press Escape or click outside), Song Cage converts each hyphen into a split, calculates beat positions for each syllable, and distributes them on the grid. In Timeline view, the block now renders as compartments with dividers between them.
The hyphens are for input only. The stored text is always clean. When you edit the word later in Sheet view, Song Cage reconstructs the hyphens for display so you can see and modify the split positions.
8.4 Compartments on the grid
A split block in Timeline view looks different from a regular block. Instead of one rounded rectangle, you see separate rounded chips for each syllable with small gaps between them. "Ri" sits in one chip, "sing" in the next, with a thin divider between them.
Each compartment sits at a specific beat position determined by the split's ratio within the block duration. The gaps between compartments are purely visual (3 pixels wide). Below each compartment, a small melody note label shows the pitch for that syllable, if one is assigned.
Click a compartment to select that specific syllable. This is how you assign melody notes per syllable: select a compartment, then pick a pitch from the melody input. The selected compartment gets a highlight ring to show which syllable is active.
8.5 Adjusting syllable timing
The dividers between compartments are draggable. Hover over a divider and it thickens to show it's interactive. Drag it left or right to change where one syllable ends and the next begins.
This is the core rhythm tool. If "Ri" should hold longer before "sing" comes in, drag the divider to the right. If "sing" needs more room, drag left. The divider snaps to the current grid division, so the timing stays rhythmically precise.
As you drag, the adjacent compartments grow and shrink in real time. The melody notes stay attached to their compartments, so adjusting the timing also adjusts when each pitch sounds during playback.
8.6 The cascade
When you drag a divider and a neighboring compartment would shrink below the minimum width (one snap division), Song Cage cascades the movement. The squeezed neighbor pushes its neighbor, which pushes the next one, and so on. If the cascade reaches the edge of the block, the block's total duration grows to make room.
This cascade is reversible. Drag the divider back and the pushed segments return to their original positions. Song Cage captures the original split positions when you start dragging and always recalculates the cascade from those originals, so dragging back undoes the push cleanly.
The same cascade happens when you resize a block's edge. If you shorten a block that has splits, the innermost segments compress first, cascading inward until every segment has at least one snap division of width. If you lengthen the block, no cascade is needed: the extra space goes to the edge segment.
8.7 Removing splits and merging blocks
Removing a single split
Hover over a divider between two compartments. A small delete button (×) appears above it. Click it to remove that split. The two compartments merge back into one segment. The text stays intact; only the timing division is removed.
Merging adjacent blocks
When two lyric blocks sit directly next to each other with no gap between them, a thin boundary line appears at their shared edge. Double-click this boundary to merge the two blocks into one. The texts join (with a space between words), and the merged block spans the combined duration.
If the blocks were created by a word split (where one block's text ends with a continuation marker), the merge reconnects them without adding a space, restoring the original word.
Adjusting the boundary between adjacent blocks
You can also drag the boundary between two adjacent blocks without merging them. This is a roll-edit: one block gets shorter while the other gets longer, and the boundary moves to the new position. Any splits inside either block rescale proportionally to fit their new durations.
That's the rhythm layer. Syllable splits turn a flat word into a phrase that breathes on the beat grid. The next chapter covers the other side of the timeline: building chord progressions with the chord palette.