On Oct 17, 2006, at 10:55 PM, dc wrote:
To my taste, the spacing is a bit too tight.
I happen to agree that it's tighter than desirable, but as I mentioned
before, constraints of style (can't change sizes, etc) and overall
layout made it pretty much mandatory.
Because,
1) as I've already mentioned, some publishers object to inconsistent
hyphening, so this is not always an option, and I realize that I don't
like it myself if I can't see a clear logic behind it. Why only one
hyphen in the first bar? Why didn't you omit also the last one? (This
doesn't mean I don't think Finale shouldn't allow to do this easily.)
The last word is "na-tion", a word with relatively short syllables on
quarter notes, as opposed to longer syllables on eighth notes elsewhere
in the measure. To have set "nation" solid would have required one of
two things: either the syllables would be pushed inward too far from
the center of their respective notes, or the two quarter notes would
have to be pushed closer together. (And I think you'll agree that the
quarter notes are already closer than we'd like them to be.)
2) more importantly, the proportionality is completely lost, both in
each bar with lyrics - see bar 5 or 6 for instance,where the eighth
notes are just as long if not longer than the quarter notes (I've been
working with singers for years, and I've noticed many times that this
does not help the (sight) reading, not to mention the aesthetical
drawback); and from one bar to another, with bars 2 and 4 so much
shorter than the others.
I agree with your objections. I definitely consider it a negative that
the proportionality is so compromised -- though I wouldn't say it's
"completely lost", particularly compared to what Finale's default
spacing would have been. As always, my response is that the
alternatives are worse. I offered this passage as an example of how to
balance conflicting goals in a situation where it's impossible to get
both lyrics and note spacing where you want them. As I said before,
both are compromised.
Even setting aside my specific constrictions with regard to style and
overall layout, what do you see as the better solution? Stretch all
the music out sufficiently wide so that the lyrics all fit and it's
still proportional? That's going to give you extremely airy music,
which I don't think will be attractive. Or reduce the size of the
lyrics so that they don't interfere so much with note proportionality?
In my experience, lyric size is a very big factor in readability for
singers. I'm never happy about reducing lyric size.
By the way, I do feel that having the beams helps readability
considerably (as it so often does, especially in recits). I know some
singers like the separate flags out of tradition, but those Mozart or
Rossini recits you see with a million sixteenth notes in a row are just
beastly to read. In this case, the beams go a long way toward
ameliorating the problem of disproportionality. If the style had
dictated all beams broken to the syllable, I'm sure I would have felt
compelled to give that much more priority to better proportionality, at
the cost of something else (lyric spacing presumably).
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