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Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 19 Aug 2018, 15:58
by benwiggy
Hyphenation should be done to dictionary word divisions, usually split along etymological and phonetic grounds. Consonants should NEVER be placed "where they sound", which is a hideous trend in recent years.

Jucio Brennan's hyphenator is not infallible, though it seems to get it right here. I would suggest that 'normal rule' with stormy is to split at the suffix point. So 'storm - y".

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 19 Aug 2018, 20:01
by John Ruggero
benwiggy wrote: 19 Aug 2018, 15:58 Consonants should NEVER be placed "where they sound", which is a hideous trend in recent years.
Not that recent. As I mentioned on a different thread, I'm pretty sure (it's been a while) that I was putting consonants at the beginning of syllables in cases like "stor-my" 50 years ago with A. Arnstein. And as I mentioned in that thread, Gould has a whole section on the various ways and reasons to divide syllables in non-dictonary ways on page 444:

"The singer's first priority is word recognition...The singer's other priority is to place vowels and consonants exactly where marked. The eye moves forward and the singer does not want to look back for the text. For that purpose, it is most helpful to place consonants at the beginning of a syllable. Thus, some setters over-rule suffix separation by carrying over a consonant to a suffix that begins with a vowel. The setter must decide if the breaks that may result are helpful or whether the decreased word recognition may cause the singer to falter.
bra-vest, ho-ping, la-sting, re-vea-ling, wee-ping"

Given the nature of the OP's endeavor, putting consonants where they are actually sung might be the best course.

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 19 Aug 2018, 21:26
by AsstGen2018
Regarding Hyphenation (stor-my vs. storm-y):

Would the purpose of the score make a difference in which hyphenation style to use? My choir performs from memory without a manuscript. The scores would be strictly for reference/library purposes, during rehearsal and in independent study.

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 19 Aug 2018, 21:33
by AsstGen2018
Schonbergian wrote: 19 Aug 2018, 03:16 The font is fine but the staff lines and, particularly, the ledger lines could stand to be significantly thicker. There are some guides on this forum for setting line weight in Finale that I think you'd find useful.
Ok. I found one of the discussion threads you referenced (http://notat.io/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=55). I played with the thickness of the staff lines, barlines, ledger lines and stems, and I like the result! I wonder why Finale (and other scorewriters from what I've read) render defaults that are thinner than standard. Thanks for the tip!

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 20 Aug 2018, 02:56
by John Ruggero
AsstGen2018 wrote: 19 Aug 2018, 21:26 . The scores would be strictly for reference/library purposes,
If it is for archival purposes, I would probably transcribe it exactly as the choir sings it.

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 20 Aug 2018, 07:12
by Florian
benwiggy wrote: 19 Aug 2018, 15:58 Hyphenation should be done to dictionary word divisions, usually split along etymological and phonetic grounds. Consonants should NEVER be placed "where they sound", which is a hideous trend in recent years.

Jucio Brennan's hyphenator is not infallible, though it seems to get it right here. I would suggest that 'normal rule' with stormy is to split at the suffix point. So 'storm - y".
Oh, ok. Is that so? I apologize for the bad advice. It seems in German hyphenation works a bit different then. The German word for "storm" is "Sturm", and for "storm-y" "stür-misch". We would never split this at the suffix point ("stürm-isch").
I'll leave language-specific advice to native speakers from now on. :)

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 20 Aug 2018, 08:04
by MalteM
Florian wrote: 20 Aug 2018, 07:12 Oh, ok. Is that so? I apologize for the bad advice. It seems in German hyphenation works a bit different then.
Yes, German hyphenation mostly follows the spoken syllables. However, it is allowed to hyphenate at former word borders like in „Inter-esse“ and „her-auf“, although the Duden prefers „Inte-resse“ and „he-rauf“. This “etymological” hyphenation works only for complete words like „her“ and „auf“ but not for suffix syllables like „-end“ in „formend“ (hyphenated „for-mend“). That’s where English is different: “-ing” in “forming” makes “form-ing”.

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 20 Aug 2018, 12:44
by John Ruggero
Florian wrote: 20 Aug 2018, 07:12 I apologize for the bad advice.
As Gould makes clear in the quote in my post above, many people hyphenate lyrics in English exactly like German: the way we actually say it. So no apology was necessary.

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 20 Aug 2018, 17:11
by Schonbergian
The dictionary also sometimes hyphenates according to some sort of black magic that bears no resemblance to the actual word etymology or how it's pronounced.

So it's not actually standardized, is harder to read in many cases, and is not in accord with practice in other languages. Why slavishly follow the dictionary then?

Re: New to engraving...am I on the right track?

Posted: 23 Sep 2018, 09:35
by Anders Hedelin
I'll go along with John there. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the master of rendering an expressive, meaningful text in singing, said that a sounding consonant before a vowel should be intonated at the pitch of the vowel, even if it precedes the new harmony (!). The (sounding) consonant becomes a sort of tied-over grace note to the vowel in other words.
So, not only in time, but also in pitch the consonant belongs to the following vowel, and it seems just very natural to put it there, in the right place musically, if not linguistically. Or am I e-rring?
Mind you, I'm not really sure about this. I never before practised 'musical hyphenation' in my own songs, but, inspired by this discussion, might very well do so in the future. When possible, it might be safe to add.