On Oct 3, 2005, at 12:47 AM, dc wrote:
I find it rather strange to say "if there's no room for a hyphen", since you're the one precisely who decides how much room to allow (or rather not to allow, in your case).
Well, yes, you decide. But if you can achieve better spacing by omitting the hyphen, you should.
For example, if you've got a song in English and somewhere in a string of 8th notes there's the word "throughout", you're probably already stretching the music more than you like just to fit "through". You shouldn't stretch it a little bit more just to fit a hyphen, too. In a marginal case, I think you use your aesthetic judgment to determine whether it's better to include the hyphen or squeeze it out.
The Schumann example I linked earlier <http://store.recordare.com/schmdich01.html> illustrates both points, I think. If the music were spaced out a little more to make room for a hyphen in "schö-nen", it would still look OK, but it wouldn't look better than the way it is. The hyphen before that is a less obvious call. It would be perfectly feasible to tighten the entire bar a smidgen and eliminate that hyphen as well, but I feel that this way is slightly better. The fact that in this case the hyphen is a more natural one orthographically (ie, separating the two parts of a compound word) and the musical space comes between two beamed groups (so that the extra space is less distracting) are both relevant factors. Context does matter.
For this example, I think that either hyphen decision could have been made the other way and it would still look OK, but I think the best choice in both cases is how it appears now. (Not surprising, since I did it....)
Anyway, I've never seen this rule or standard of yours in any of my reference books. Have you read it anywhere, or is it just something you've always assumed?
The latter, but also based on observation of publications I respect and the opinions of other engravers whom I respect, along with my own aesthetic judgment.
I must confess that I haven't found anything myself to the contrary, so I'm genuinely interested in knowing if there are any rules. It can be ambiguous in certain cases, and in certain languages, when the same of part of word can be treated in the same piece as either one or two syllables.
Well, that's another matter entirely. There are certain words, particularly in French, which a composer may choose to set on one syllable or two. "Je t'aime", for example, can have "t'aime" on one note or "t'ai-me" on two notes, depending on how the composer wants it to be sung. If the composer chooses one note, there can be no hyphen. If the composer chooses two notes, then the hyphen can be included or omitted so long as the score still makes it clear that it's two syllables on two notes. If there's any risk of ambiguity then of course you do whatever is necessary to make the composer's scansion intent clear. In theory, that could make the hyphen mandatory in such a case, but it's really hard for me to imagine such a situation where it wouldn't be clear from the music.
Occasionally you'll even see a composer try to split the difference -- notating a French word with a soft 'e' at the end as two syllables on two notes, but with the two notes on the same pitch and connected by a tie. Personally, I find that a little odd, but even so, it's still a musical decision, not an engraving decision, so as an engraver you respect it.
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