by necessity, anything new we do from the Parish Book of Chant, they have to mark individually. I have taught them the rules of ictus marking (using the back of the Parish Book of Chant as a guideline). We do that the first time we sing it together. Anything that is a proper that I give them copies, I pre-mark it before copying to save time. As we learn a new piece, though, we always sing and count before we do solfege or sing with words.

I think the more you can get them out of their scores the better. Remember, the ictus is just something we superimpose on a chant to help us make sense of larger groups of notes. Notes marked with the ictus are not sung any differently than notes not marked with an ictus, per se. However, as much as I admire Erik's effort in adding all the ictuses to the score above, I fear that an over-marked score could lead to a choir giving an accented or otherwise choppy reading -- quite the opposite of what Mocquereau intended. There's probably good reason that the Solesmes books don't mark every ictus (and they clearly could have), even though they're the ones who came up with the idea in the first place. I would suggest circling groups of three in pieces where twos are the rule, and vice versa. You will also find the more a choir has a piece committed to memory, the more they will be able to watch your conducting, which should give them all the rhythmic information they need.

I do occasionally employ a strict Solesmes method when I don't have a lot of time to teach a chant, or when we have new people singing with us. One exercise that can be helpful is having your choir count "one-TWO" or "one-two THREE" as you show the chieronomy. Let them know that this is as much an exercise for yourself, to make sure you're showing the patterns as clearly as you intend! Vary the groups of two and three as well as arsis and thesis. Then, do the same thing, but have them say "arsis, thesis, arsis, arsis, thesis" etc. (or, better, "elan, repos" or even "rising, resting") as you show these two gestures. Again, vary the groups of two an three (a group of three would be "aaaarsis, theeeesis"). If you're really conducting clearly, the choir should know by beat 1 whether it's arsis or thesis and by beat 2 (better, by beat 1!) if it's going to be a group of two or three.

Dr. Marier explained ictus being like snow flake . (It's there, but you don't feel the weight.)
For myself, I don't mark all the ictus anymore, just circle some 3s, but it may be a good dscipline for the beginning chanters, as long as you don't do it too much in one class. Eventually they won't need to do them all either.

Also I emphasize that the Latin stress is different from English accent, it's rather light and high. (its seems almost opposite of the American English accent.)

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Would it make any sense to say: "3,2,1" and "2,1"?

miacoyne, no sorry, what I meant was that I use the word 'fall' or 'repose', "rest" instead of confusing them with the words 'ictus' 'Thesis'. But generally I discourage their thinking about the ictus, and focus on the up pulse instead, this prevents stressed ictus [plural ;) ].

the ictus does fall because its heavier than the 'lift pulse' but its heavy like a snowflake not a brick. Its almost imperceptible and gives just enough support and also not all ictus are equal.

frogman, is that a loaded question? Pure and strict adherence to the method requires dividing the elementary rhythms beginning with the down pulse 1, but with a word that is a dactyl I would like to count 3,2,1