Software for putting solfege syllables on top of gregorian chant?

princehal

I'm making parish handouts. I want to print the square notes of the chants we're using. Partly since it's compact, and mostly because I'm too lazy to write out the round notes.

However, most of my parishioners can read round notes but not square notes, making me a bad music director who is insensitive to the needs of my congregation.

So my question is: is there any software solution in Gregorio or elsewhere that can put little do-re-mi syllables above the square notes to help everyone read it? Maybe there isn't but I thought I'd ask.

Thanks! :) Thomas

Jes

Hey Thomas, I reckon let them deal with the square notes without.
I don't know if there is anything in software that does that.

I was in the same boat and couldn't be stuffed doing round so I did square (and I hand wrote it in calligraphy so it looked awesome) and then I scanned it and printed it and the parish use them heaps and I thought they would be resistant. I might have been "insensitive to their needs" but they forgot about it soon after they got them cos most will use them just for the words and vague direction of the notes anyway.

If you then have heaps of time you can hold a how to read chant session and then you don't feel so insensitive to others needs.

Adam Wood

I am confused by the level of musical literacy in a congregation where reading square notes is too hard, put printing solfege syllables actually helps. Is there some kind of universal Kodaly training where you live?

Carl D

I used to go to the work to re-transcribe everything in round notes for the congregation, and it was a total pain. When I moved to a new parish, the director just prints whatever's convenient (round or square) in the program and doesn't get much negative feedback at all.

I agree with Jes. Use square notes, and if anybody complains, say "the square notes are actually easier to sing from." It's true.

In general, very few people can relate to Do-Re-Mi, especially in real time. Heck, numbers would be easier.

princehal

I envy those here who seem to have square notation involved in their local music classes.... In my case though, even the 1-2% of my congregation that have had years of extensive musical training, have still never seen a square note in their lives. They have watched "Sound of Music," however, as have most of my less-extensively-trained parishioners, which is why I thought that could be a bridge for them.

I just realized last night, however, that I can get 80% of the way there by just annotating an italic "Do" with an arrow pointing at the do clef, and figuring the ones that like to figure out what's going on can at least have something to orient off of.... :) So problem solved, for me anyway.

Thanks guys!

JonathanKK

Just in case it is useful to have in your bag of tricks:

Gregorio does allow you to put in a translation with every syllable; the code is to put the translation in square brackets after the actual syllable, before the code for the notes, e.g. Text[Text](notes). However, the defaults for this only get you italic text, left aligned with the syllables that you put it with, so to do much with it you would probably end up having to rig things spacing-wise.

See HERE for an blog post where I did use this feature to give an example with solfege.

Jes

Trained or not, I actually don't think it makes a difference. The chant is clearly squares on a ladder of higher at the top lower at the bottom notes. I know people with very little music training that can point that out. Certainly my 2 year old students can. They can also tell me if it steps or jumps but this is atypical of that age group I usually don't achieve that til 3 or 4.

Do what is easy and convenient. I like to include a legend sometimes like a table of neumes but I doubt it's necessary.

I must admit the do re mi factor has really taken off in Aus. There must have been something in my parents generation that made sure every child knew solfege or something? They all seem to be able to sing it and much better than I can.

I was raised more dalcroze/orff and sang proper letter names. I do find it interesting that they all have good relative pitch but none have pitch memory but my orff friends mostly have pitch memory, some to them can list number frequency accurately including 1 decimal.

The other thing I find interesting is that congregants in Aus don't sing despite a childhood in the 70's when there was ABC radio broadcasts with crap songs the children would have to sing to in their classroom each day.

No such compulsory singing program exists for kids now in Aus but some schools are bringing the compulsory choir culture back and the results are incredible. The boys school I teach at is the school with the best discipline I've ever seen.

CCooze

This may seem like an obvious solution, but couldn't you just open it as a pdf file, and type the letters above it, using the "fill/sign" function?

(incidentally, I don't think that it would be of any help. You'd have to go through and explain what all the little letters were for, etc.
I really like solfege. I like using it as a sight-reading tool (but I don't mean a written one). But, I do NOT like having a letter above every single one of the notes in my music, or even over many notes, unless I put it there, myself (for some odd reason) - because, then it has meaning. That is probably THE most annoying thing about some of the lovely music shared via the CCWatershed website.)

bhcordova

They have watched "Sound of Music," however, as have most of my less-extensively-trained parishioners, which is why I thought that could be a bridge for them.

The 'Do a deer' song from the sound of music is to solfege as the Bb Concert scale is to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

StephenMatthew

As long as a person has heard the "Do a dear" song from the Sound of Music then they should have (passing) familiarity with solfege syllables (and if a school music program doesn't make the kids memorize that particular song it is missing a fine opportunity). Once you have that knowledge, and then know how to spot a do clef or fa clef on Gregorian notation it is entirely possible for a nearly illiterate person to piece together something approximating the correct melody for chant. The absence of a do or fa clef and the necessity of knowing key signatures makes modern notation vastly less friendly to sight singing than Gregorian notation (that said, modern notation seems vastly better suited to most instruments, my ideal world has music noted in Gregorian fashion for singers with the instrumental copies in modern notation). The only people I know that can sight sing from modern notation had extensive instrumental training that required learning to read music proficiently to the point it is now intuitive/automatic and their active concentration can be devoted solely to the words. I know quite a few people with minimal formal musical training that can sing from Gregorian notation or from something with the solfege syllables noted, with only a small bit of time to work out what they are sining.

On the other hand, I do agree, very few people can read Do-Re-Mi and the words to a piece of music simultaneously and sing it in real time, but then few people can do that sort of sight singing with any form of notation, because humans are not really optimized for reading two different lines (written in essentially two different languages) simultaneously. To then expect them to also be counting time in the background, maintain pitch, and maintain breath control is asking more than most people in the pew ever will manage.

Adam Wood

Congregational Instructions for Reading Four-Line Square Notes

1. The notes go up.
2. The notes go down.
3. Two notes stacked on top of each other sung one after the other: first the lower one, then the higher one.

That is all people need. Really. Don't complicate this.

Protasius

I would add an explanation of the porrectus to prevent a glissando.

CCooze

I think a porrectus is pretty self-explanatory - not that one need be written in a bulletin/worship aid.

I'd think it more likely to be performed as a mordent, than as a glissando, if we were going by looks.

bonniebede

For the kids i put the music (in neumes) into publisher, and add a line of numbers ala the ward method along the top.

Andrew_Malton

Porrectus: I never heard a group of newbies try to sing a glissando, usually the first and second time it's a sudden drop in volume as beginners stop being able to guess what to sing; then they get it.

However, I have found it useful to point out that they should not try to sing the clef.

Jes

Would a porrectus be actually needed in congregation square note music???
Is the sheet music being introduced after aural acquisition has occurred?

My experience was that my sheets were made after people from the congregation said they had heard the music but wanted something to read to. We did just plain words but one lady still complained that she needed notes so I did my square notes page and that finished it. People knew it anyway because they had already heard how it went but they found it cool to see what it looked like on the page too and then they understood what they were missing out on in their understanding. That being said I didn't use any porrectus or quilisma or anything fancy literally just plain punctums with dots or episemas with the occasional punctum inclinatum for faster notes. I didn't even do podatus vel pes instead just putting the ascending punctums side to side in the order I wished. The downside to this is that it's not really space efficient and it also means you have to be extremely deliberate about where each syllable goes. The upside is that the complaints stop and you still are getting the congregants to use their ears anyway.

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