Re: lyrics to music

[Reinhold Kainhofer]

On 20/11/2012 16:25, Fr. Michael Gilmary, mma wrote:

Hi everybody:

Here's a general question that's bothered me for some time ... because I'm not a musician or composer ---

when setting lyrics to music, is it ever acceptable to join eighth notes across syllables or even across words?

I have been told by a reliable expert (hi Rembrandt!) that joining the eighth notes across syllables/words is never done ... but I have examples like the second one here from a very accomplished composer. Maybe he just isn't familiar with how to prevent his program from joining them. It certainly makes for difficult reading of the lyrics, IMHO.

In the 18th and 19th century, melismas were indicated by beams, so back then the eights would never get beamed, unless they were a melisma (i.e. belonged to the same syllable).
However, modern and contemporary notation will use the same beaming as for instruments and instead indicate melismas with slurs.

So, it's basically a convention and your choice whether you want to use the traditional way (never beam notes across syllables) or the modern notation practice.

As a (classical) singer, I have to admit, I'm always confused by the modern notation and sight-reading takes much more effort than with the traditional notation. That might, however, also be due to me being used only to the traditional notation.

Cheers,
Reinhold

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Reinhold Kainhofer, address@hidden, http://www.kainhofer.com
 * Financial & Actuarial Math., Vienna Univ. of Technology, Austria
 * http://www.fam.tuwien.ac.at/, DVR: 0005886
 * Edition Kainhofer, Music Publisher, http://www.edition-kainhofer.com