Re: Early (very early) project: The Celtic Song Book (c) 1928

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Valentin,

>> - In older music with lyrics it was common to see beams broken for each
>> syllable. Today it's common practice to not do that.

> That is not totally a thing of old practise/new practice.
> Conventional vocal practise is to have beams align with melismas.

As an engraver, and as both a choral conductor and singer, I must disagree: the 
overwhelming majority of contemporary choral scores exhibit “instrumental 
beaming” (i.e., beaming to the beat/meter) — it is now the convention (a.k.a. 
“new practice”) — and melismatic beaming (a.k.a. “old practice”) is almost 
unseen nowadays.

This is confirmed by Elaine Gould in “Behind Bars” (p. 435): “Until well into 
the twentieth century, a separate tail was used for each syllable in vocal 
music, and notes within a beat were beamed only to indicate that a syllable 
took more than one note. […] Instrumental beaming (i.e. beaming into beats) is 
now used in vocal music together with syllabic slurs”.

Cheers,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer (he/him/his)
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: kieren@kierenmacmillan.info