For curiosity, does your director *discourage* stagger breathing? That
would seem to maintain the flow of music as the composer (presumably)
intended, while recognising the basses don't breathe through their ears.
Cheers,
Colin
On 2026-06-22 18:14, Gabriel Ellsworth wrote:
Thanks for clarifying!
The “shave off” colloquialism in my previous message may not be all
that clear.“Shave off” means “subtract from the composer’s original,
full note value” and release (breathe) early.
Why are early releases such a frequent phenomenon in my choir’s
performances of Renaissance polyphony? Because composers in the
16thcentury often wrote very long stretches of music, much longer than
a human being can reasonably sing in one breath, without any rests.
See, for example, the image inmy May email
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2026-05/msg00080.html>.
In our choir’s modern practice, standardized early releases enable us
to have, for example, all altos breathe at the same time. This means
that all consonants land at the same time!
