Lyrics and Spelling

This page has info about lyrics, spelling, and capitalization for Rock Band Network songs within Rock Band 3

Lyrics Research

Official Lyrics

Sent from the band’s label or from the band directly are best. You can't get these for every song, but if you have official lyrics you should try to hold true to them as much as possible.

Official Band Website

If there are no official lyrics this should be the next place to look. The lyrics provided on the official band website should take priority over other websites, but only if they appear legitimate. In other words, some "official lyrics" are just a webmaster copying and pasting inaccurate lyrics from another website, and some bear the mark of actual quality.

If there’s no clear link to lyrics on the main page it may take some searching to find official lyrics, but they’re usually listed under “Music”, “Albums”, “Discography”, or a variant of these.

Album

The physical album lyrics should take priority over all other transcriptions unless they clearly contradict recorded vocals.

Other Lyric Websites/Youtube

If all else fails, search for lyrics on the internet and use your judgment on how closely you adhere to them. It’s always good to have something to compare it to, and occasionally a random lyric site will help you find a lyric issue you wouldn’t have found had you not been checking it against a source.

Youtube can also be helpful. Sometimes a live performance of a track, an alternate version, or simply being able to see the vocalist's lips moving, are enough to shed light on the exact lyrics.

Spelling

First and foremost, spelling mistakes are the most noticeable bug for vocals. Make absolutely sure to google a word if you have the slightest doubt about its misspelling. Is it spelled “anihilation” or “annihilation”? Are you sure? If it isn’t one of the most common words in the dictionary, you’re better safe than sorry.

It's good practice to keep the Merriam Webster Dictionary as a tab on your web browser, although if it's more a slang word that you're searching for The Free Dictionary is another good source.

Another thing to look out for is special characters such as accent marks. If a word looks foreign, you should be checking to see if it is a “loanword” from another language, and apply accent marks as appropriate. “Naive” becomes “naïve”, and “uber” becomes “über”.

If you are charged with authoring or testing a foreign language song or phrase, research it with google and translation software such as http://babelfish.yahoo.com/. Researching info on the language itself may be necessary (did you know that every noun is capitalized in the German language? NOW YOU DO). Note that even within the English language, spellings can differ: "color" for an American band, but "colour" for an British band.

Standard Spellings

Some basics...

All right - preferred over "Alright"

'Til - preferred over "Till"

'Cause - preferred over "cuz"

Mama - preferred over "Momma"

Yeah - As opposed to “Yea"

Whoa - As opposed to “Woah”

Ugh - Reserved for exasperated sigh. See “Megadeth – I Ain’t Superstitious” for proper use.

Unh - A nasally grunt sound, almost like an "Nnn" sound

Huah! - Reserved for the signature “death metal grunt” sound.

Yippie-ki-yo-ki-yi-ki-yay - Reserved for Toby Keith.

<whistle> - Cue the player to whistle, should be phonics set to “easy” (incase the player can’t actually whistle). Similar prompts should be done in the same format, such as <yawn> or <sneeze>. You may also author whistling pitched as "doo doo doo" if it seems appropriate to encourage the player to "sing" the whistled parts.

Other random things

Always write out numbers in words like "Four Hundred Twenty-Three" instead of "423". Don't forget to use a hyphen between the tens and units number when writing out the numbers twenty-one to ninety-nine.

For words that have an "uh" sound before or after the word, our standard is as follows - If the "uh" sound is before the word, it should be "a-", like "a-going" or "a-not". For words that have an "uh" sound after the word it should be spelled "-ah", like "running-ah" or "fly-ah".

Punctuation and Formatting

? - Used to end a question, or a phrase pronounced with an inquisitive “raised tone”. If the question spans multiple phrases, the question mark will be used at the final word of the entire question. The next word after a question mark is always capitalized.

! - Used when the vocalist sings/speaks a word or phrase at a volume that is much higher than overall song volume. The next word after an exclamation point is always capitalized. These should be used sparingly to send the player the right cues at the right times. If a phrase has the first word shouted “Stop! Hammertime”, a last word shouted “Let there be light!”, or the whole phrase is a single interjection “Oh yeah!” these are good candidates for an exclamation point. Long phrases with a single shout or belted out word in the middle may be best left without punctuation breaking up the flow, and this is handled on a case-by-case basis.

?! - Used for something that is both an exclamation and a question (“Ready?!”). Question mark is prioritized first.

Hyphen - Hyphenate compound words/modifiers/phrases such as “blood-red”, “two-foot”, “ten-story”, “jack-of-all-trades”, and “one-of-a-kind”. Details can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen.

Apostrophe - Apostrophes may be added to words that are truncated (The word "rev'rence" appears in Aesthetics of Hate, as the vocalist skips an entire syllable in "reverence") or when the beginning or end of the word is deliberately not pronounced. For clarity in reading, the "-ing" suffix on the ends of words can be left intact on a band-by-band basis (try checking the official lyrics for an indication of style). Apostrophes should be avoided when possible if the abbreviated word is unusual/vague and could confuse a player. If a word begins with an apostrophe and starts a sentence ('Fraid), it is still capitalized.

Acronyms - For consistency, acronyms such as "TV" or "CDs" are formatted as un-spaced uppercase letters, with a lowercase "s" to pluralize. Periouds should NOT be placed in between the letters. When words or non-standard acronyms are spelled out by the vocalist "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" or "P-O-P prodigies of peace", the acronyms should be hyphenated for clarity.

Punctuation Never Used

We never use periods, commas, or quotation marks. So, for example...the sentence "She said, 'Let's fall in love'" would be written "She said let's fall in love" without the quotation marks, comma, or capitalized "Let's".

Capitalization

Always capitalize the first word of every phrase as if it were the first word of a sentence (even if the phrase begins in the middle of a sentence).

Capitalize proper names of people and specific places, including fictional or theoretical places (the mountains versus the Ozark Mountains, “head south on the compass” versus “down in the South”, heavenly versus Heaven, “run like hell” versus Hell).

Capitalize all references to God or Jesus only when used in a Christian context, as well as the Devil or Satan.

Capitalize names of Bands/Songs/Movies/Books and other media titles with the standard American style-guide format. First and last words uppercase, prepositions lowercased, unless the name is formatted a specific way for stylistic purposes. Full documentation can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Basic_Book_Design/Capitalizing_Words_in_Titles.

For example, Panic at the Disco’s song Nine in the Afternoon. Songs should be capitalized with this format in our song select screen, and references to any works within a song should be capitalized the same way. If you type the name of a band or work into http://en.wikipedia.org/, the entry you receive will be formatted to this standard nearly every time.

Exception for Capitalization Rules in RB3

With harmonies added to RB3, there are some cases where harmony 1, harmony2, and harmony 3 will all have different lyrics. When this happens, the rules for capitalization will be changed slightly. As seen in the picture above, the harmony 2/3 lyrics (the top line) are "Ooh Any way the wind blows". Notice that the second word of the phrase is capitalized, even though it's not beginning a new phrase. This is because harmony 2 is singing "Ooh" and harmony 3 is singing "Any way the wind blows". Since two different vocal parts are sharing the same lyric line, the capitalization of "Any" is an indicator that harm2 and 3 are singing completely different lines.

Another case where we make an exception for our capitalization rules is when the lyrics for harmony 2 or 3 are different than harmony 1 and are offset from each other, causing a sentence for harmony 2 or 3 to cross the phrase marker. Note the line "She's givin' me the excitations" for harmony 3 in the picture above. Since the phrase markers are based off of what Harm 1 is singing, Harm 2's lyrics have the word "She's" at the end of the previous phrase and "givin" as the first word of the current phrase. Since it would look odd to have "givin'" capitalized, we use the rule of "ghost phrase markers" where we have the option to keep words decapped at the beggining of sentences for harm2 and 3 in cases of offset lyrics.

Standard Spellings for Sound Fragments

Multiple sounds can be strung together with hyphens, like AC/DC’s “Ooh high-ee-ay-ee-yeah”. Also, words can be written out phonetically if necessary, like "Twa-ee-a-ee-ang". Only write out words phonetically if it seems weird to NOT write them out that way.

Nine standard sound fragments:

Ee - Hard “E”
Eh - Used for soft “ehhhh” sounds.
Ay - Always use this for a hard “A”, never “eh”.
Oh - Pronounced like “no”
Ooh - Pronounced like “you”
Ah
Aw
Uh
Mmm - Always use this, never “Nnn”, as nasal sounds are not as readily picked up by the microphone.

When started with an “H” sound, the same nine sounds (in order):

Hee
Heh
Hey
Ho
Hoo
Ha
Haw
Huh
Hmm

Others:

Um
Woo
Wah
Yay
Yo
Ow
Yow
Wow

Non-English Languages

Currently, the most common non-English language supported is Spanish, which has its own special lyric authoring rules. For more information, see Spanish Syllables.