On Dec 3, 2011, at 9:40 AM, John Howell wrote: > I agree with Mark in principle, but in practice > it can be a real can of worms! The problem he > cites with English words in long melismas is a > real one, simply because in English each vowel > had a number of possible pronunciations, unlike > several other common languages, and the singer > has to decide which one to use right at the > beginning of the word.
True, but the majority of these vowel issues can be reduced to questions of short and long, and these are exactly the ones hyphenation rules address pretty well. (Indeed, English hyphenation is complicated precisely because of the existence of long and short vowels.) The general rule is that if a vowel is short, you should keep the following consonant with it, and if the vowel is long you should break after the vowel. This is logically tied to how English spelling and pronunciation evolved, and readers perceive it instinctively even if they don't consciously identify short and long vowels. Even if you've never thought about it explicitly, your entire reading experience tells you that a short vowel sound never comes at the end of a word, and that when a word ends in a consonant the vowel is almost never long. Thus the singer instinctively observes the same pattern with single syllables presented alone. The same principle covers most vowels -- even some that aren't strictly short or long but follow a similar pattern. I find the worst problems are with soft c's or g's that fall at the end of an accented syllable, (eg, pac-ify, dec-i-mate, reg-i-ster, log-i-cal). There's really no good answer to those. > But it can create just as much confusion to > "creatively" mis-hyphenate words in an ATTEMPT to > write down what you think singers should sing. I > run into this fairly often in my Vocal/Choral > Arranging class, especially when the students are > instrumentalists and not used to seeing vocal > music or thinking about hyphenation. They try to > "write it the way it sounds," and end up with > gobbledegook that would confound ANY singers > trying to sightread it! I absolutely agree on this. We discussed it on this list once before. I think pedagogic schemes involving pseudo-phonetic spellings or pushing all the consonants to the next syllable as a vocal exercise make things worse. They're fine for lesson context where you're teaching specific skills to singers, but for regular music no. I also dislike phonetic schemes for languages with non-Latin alphabets, like Russian. If you're not going to learn the alphabet (which is best), it's still far better to have a transliteration system that accurately reflects the logic of the native alphabet. > I've been writing vocal charts for upwards of 60 > years, and I strongly advise using normal, > dictionary hyphenation in ALMOST every case. It > comes under "better the devil you know ..." I agree, but that implies there is a single "normal, dictionary" system, which isn't the case. British publishing has traditionally followed a derivation-based hyphenation system for word divisions, while American publishing follows a pronunciation-based system. The "American" system has gained ground even in Britain, but many reputable publications still consider the "British" system correct. I would say that the American system (ie, pronunciation-based) is always preferred for vocal music. (For non-musical prose, I personally prefer the "British" system, which, incidentally, would never break after a soft c or soft g.) > And for anyone who hasn't worked with lyrics in > other languages, guess what: the hyphenation > rules are completely different!!! But there ARE > rules. And I think my Mom knew them all. Of the languages frequently encountered in classical music, English is by far the hardest to hyphenate in (for the same reason it's hardest to spell in). Even French, which has some complicated spellings, is fairly easy to hyphenate, and other common languages in the classical repertoire are easier still. I'm pretty sure I could lay out a clear set of rules for hyphenating in French, German, Italian, Latin, or Spanish. Writing up a comprehensive set of rules for English would be a challenge. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
