Singing "Risen"
  • RossWilliams
    Posts: 2
    When singing "Christ, the Lord, is Risen Today," and "Risen" has a quarter note, do you change the rhythm and sing "Ri-sen" as two eighth notes?
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    It would be better for the text to the modified reflect the more usual choral practice of singing "ris'n" on a single note. (Arguably, the "n" is merged into "to-".) Converting the quarter into two equal eighths would change the energy of the melody line. (Even when congregants sing two syllables, they aren't typically equal, but the first is imprecisely longer than the second.)
    Thanked by 4Adam Wood M. Jackson Osborn Priestboi Casavant Organist
  • ClemensRomanusClemensRomanus
    Posts: 1,023
    That's how I've always done it.
  • JesJes
    Posts: 576
    Ris'n though I have heard "Christ the Lord, got up today."

    It does depend on how slow your crotchets are.
    I have heard risen when sung at 70bpm or slower.
    Faster I hear Risn.

    My experience is the slower version with both syllables is normally sung in Protestant churches that also use old English for the whole hymn but I don't know why this is done because truncating a word like that I would have thought would have been more popular.
    Thanked by 1Casavant Organist
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 339
    I prefer to move quickly to the voiced 'n'.
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    We experimented with this at rehearsal last night (as much of our upcoming hymnody has these apostrophe'd texts) and I found it much more musical to hold the vowel and attach the remaining consonants to the next word... not necessarily on the beat, but a very brief pickup. Like a dotted eighth + sixteenth, or maybe even more separated than that.

    tl;dr - I agree with Liam.


    Depending on which hymn tune you're using:

    LLANFAIR: Christ the Lord is Ri - snto-o-day.

    EASTER HYMN: Christ the Lord is Ri - snto-da-ay.
    Thanked by 2nun_34 eft94530
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Ryan

    Excellent illustration of the coupling of the syllabic train-cars.
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Thanks. Permission to use the term "syllabic train cars" at rehearsal next week?
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Yes. But the idea really is derived from metaphors used by Robert Shaw and many other choral conductors about singing through vowels (and the singer's responsibility not to conspire with the premature death of a note) and coupling on consonants like links in a chain. The train car image is not one I've heard others use, but I like it because couplers have some give between them, and I think that they better image the ever so slight judgments of musicality involved in different couplings. (And I have family who are rail fans.)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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