Why hyphens are used?
  • archerloh
    Posts: 1
    Dear all,

    I was wondering, why are hyphens used in Gregorian Chant notations? for eg:

    Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son

    Glo-ri-a in excelsis De-o

    and the place of the hyphens differ from publication to publication and from chant to chant. for eg:

    the Gloria from the "Conditor Kyrie omnium" - (gregorian missal)

    Glo-ri-a in excel-sis De-o

    whereas the Gloria from "Cunctipotens genitor Deus" (gregorian missal)

    Glo-ri-a in excelsis De-o ... (there is no hyphen here between the syllabus "cel" and "sis")

    1) is there any significance in how we sing it when there are hyphens?
    2) or are the hyphens there as visual aid?
    3) This "inconsistency" also appears in the various publications for the Liber
    4) Is there a system of how hyphens are used?
    5) When there are no hyphens, is it because of space constrain?

    Pls help enlighten me on this... : )

    apprecite it much...

    God bless

    ben
  • Richard R.
    Posts: 774
    The Solesmes editions, along with most others, hyphenate the text only when necessary to provide proper spacing for the neumes. The punctum or first note of each neume is placed above the vowel of the syllable on which it is sung. If the vowels of consecutive syllables are too close, the separation between the neumes is hard to see. A hyphen is added to spread out the music. Otherwise, no hyphen is used. The effect is obvious when you compare these printed editions to the efforts of some amateur transcribers using a chant font, in which neumes looked cramped, and sometimes individual puntums appear at first glance to be multi-note neumes.

    For my English adaptations, I tend to hyphenate every syllable, and center the neume above the syllable. I find this system easier for English speakers to read, especially since many English words contain syllables with no operative vowel.
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    It's good to know that I'm not the only one who has run into that difficulty, Richard!

    The only other thing I'll note is that hyphens are often NOT put at exactly the point where I was taught to split syllables in English class. Instead, consonants are often shifted to the beginning of the next syllable. I explain to my schola that it's a constant reminder to sing the vowels as long as possible, and shorten the consonants.

    You don't want to sing it "Dommmmmmmmmmmminnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnussssssssss" - timewise, it's Dooooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus." Writing it as "Do-mi-nus" helps people to remember that.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,769
    Differences are to some extent national: German san-ctus vs. sanc-tus (btw, are there style manuals covering this?). Sung as opposed to written hyphenization is not a bad idea though. I notice the 'correct' pos-ci-mus usually trips someone up and I use po-sci-mus when making my own editions.
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    As far as I know, there are rules for hyphenating Latin, that have however nothing to do with the English or German Pronunciation. I would need to look them up, but they are quite clear as far as I remember. "sanc-tus" for example is hyphenated according to German rules of pronunciation. The correct hyphenation however is "san-ctus"... because the rules say so. I can post them later, but I need to search the book first.
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