A command-line utility that makes the Mac text-to-speech voices sing tunes.

You specify the melody in ABC notation. Syllables are automatically matched to the notes. Slurred notes are sung on one syllable.

Usage: perl sing.pl [opts] [melody] [lyrics...]
  (melody in abc notation, enclosed in quotes if necessary)

  -l file      read lyrics from file
  -m file      read melody from file
  -n number    shift pitch by half-steps
  -o number    shift pitch by octaves
  -p           print tone command instead of singing  
  -t number    multiply tempo by number
  -v name      specify voice to sing with

The notes are read from the abc data in simple sequence: ie, sing does not currently support repeat signs etc.

Examples

perl sing.pl GCEA2 My dog has fleas
perl sing.pl -v Alex -o-1 -t 0.5 GCEA2 My dog has fleas
perl sing.pl 'C2 CC3 C C-D2C B,4' Ground control to major Tom

Ties and slurs:

perl sing.pl 'GCEA-|A' My dog has fleas
perl sing.pl GCEC4-A4 My dog has fleas
perl sing.pl 'GCE(C4A4)' My dog has fleas

Triplet:

perl sing.pl '(3ACE)G2' My dog has fleas

Details

The way this works is to send the speech synthesizer exact pitch and duration instructions for each phoneme, using the TUNE command (see Apple's docs). You can see the TUNE command that sing creates by using the -p option.