Re: [Finale] Strophic settings
On Jan 19, 2013, at 4:50 AM, dc wrote: > I'm afraid this question has already been asked, possibly by me! > > How many verses can decently be put under the same music without it > becoming very hard to read? I'd say three or four at the most, but I'm > no singer, so I'm not sure even four is not too many. Personally, I think of three as a maximum. Unless I have a specific space constraint, I'll split four verses into two and two. As others have noted, different styles/traditions of music have different tolerances. Multiple verses are more common in church hymnbooks, for instance. The most important consideration, in my opinion, is not the music style per se but the intended usage. If the music is going to be sung by a chorus reading from the book in performance, then I would never go above three. That's a case where your typographic choice WILL contribute to an inferior performance. It may be somewhat counterintuitive, but I am more inclined to split verses the more professional the singers are. Amateur singers are more likely to memorize (ie, memorize the music and follow the lyrics with their eyes), so the extra distance is more tolerable. Professionals are more likely to be sight-reading with little or no rehearsal, and therefore they are more likely to be bothered by multiple lyric lines, not less. If the piece is a solo song rather than a chorus, particularly in a staged work, then again it's more likely to memorized rather than sung from the page, so that would make multiple verse lines more tolerable. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Strophic settings
Phil Daley wrote: > Yes, but . . . > > Verses on a different page are even harder to read than multiple ones under > the music. Very much, in my opinion, a matter of acclimation. If you talk to someone who is accustomed to the layout of hymnals in the UK, they declare a great deal of discomfort with multiple stanzas underlaying the music; they much prefer the UK norm of a single underlaid stanza, with all others below or on a facing page. In rare cases where the stanzas do not fit on two pages, BTW, the norm is tor reproduce the music on the next page, although this has not always been the case. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Strophic settings
dc wrote: > I'm afraid this question has already been asked, possibly by me! > > How many verses can decently be put under the same music without it > becoming very hard to read? I'd say three or four at the most, but I'm > no singer, so I'm not sure even four is not too many. This is a cultural issue. In Europe, even in the most recent hymnals, the custom is to underlay a single stanza, with the others below or on a facing page. In the US, the custom a century ago was to usually underlay three or four stanzas in the staff, and place the balance below or on a facing page. The layout appears to have been the deciding factor; if there was an odd number of total stanzas, then three stanzas were underlaid; if there was even number, then two or four were underlaid. As others have noted, in more recent US hymnals, as many as six or seven stanzas are underlaid. When this happens, however, there is generally a subtle division in the underlay, in that the six stanzas are not all uniformly spaced, but rather the first three and the second three are uniformly spaced, with either a slightly larger inter-stanza spacing between stanzas 3 and 4, or perhaps a line whose length is approximately the duration of a quarter note in the music between those stanzas. I have more rarely seen in a six stanza item, where the stanzas were logically in couplets (that is the pairs of stanzas 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 each formed a single cohesive logical idea--the punctuation at the end of stanzas 1, 3, and 5 were semicolons or commas, and the punctuation at the ends of stanzas 2, 4, and 6 each formed a full stop), where this was indicated in the music by inserting the same type of line break. Note, too, that in some cases more than one layout of the same tune is produced, one for those who will be singing, and a different one for the accompanist, and that the two layouts do not always exactly match. The layout for the singers may have several stanzas underlaid where the one for the accompanist has only one stanza underlaid (to reduce ambiguities about exactly how syllables are to underlay the music), with the balance below or on a facing page or below. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Strophic settings
Yes, but . . . Verses on a different page are even harder to read than multiple ones under the music. Of course, maybe you wouldn't have to sing those ;-) At 1/19/2013 10:06 AM, David H. Bailey wrote: >I agree with Phil Daley that more than 4 becomes hard to read, even >though some currently published hymnals have up to 6 verses. > >But I would also hasten to add that printing any remaining verses on a >different page can also be problematic -- especially when some foolish >editor isn't really a musician and will never be performing from his/her >own edition and they put the extra verses overleaf so it's not even >possible to see the music anymore. > >If you print extra verses separately, please be sure that they are on a >page facing the original music. > >In my opinion and preference. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Strophic settings
On 1/19/2013 7:50 AM, dc wrote: > I'm afraid this question has already been asked, possibly by me! > > How many verses can decently be put under the same music without it > becoming very hard to read? I'd say three or four at the most, but I'm > no singer, so I'm not sure even four is not too many. > I agree with Phil Daley that more than 4 becomes hard to read, even though some currently published hymnals have up to 6 verses. But I would also hasten to add that printing any remaining verses on a different page can also be problematic -- especially when some foolish editor isn't really a musician and will never be performing from his/her own edition and they put the extra verses overleaf so it's not even possible to see the music anymore. If you print extra verses separately, please be sure that they are on a page facing the original music. In my opinion and preference. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Strophic settings
Current church hymnals have up to 6. I think more than 4 becomes harder to read. At 1/19/2013 07:50 AM, dc wrote: >I'm afraid this question has already been asked, possibly by me! > >How many verses can decently be put under the same music without it >becoming very hard to read? I'd say three or four at the most, but I'm >no singer, so I'm not sure even four is not too many. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
