Talk:Anglican chant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Songs, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to songs on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
WikiProject Anglicanism
Anglican chant is part of WikiProject Anglicanism, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as b-class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

Article Grading:
The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.


Anglican chant was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: April 12, 2006

[edit] Suggestions

I'd like to see more discussion on how text is pointed. For example, in the first phrase of sample text, the article points it as follows (my notation):

My soul doth | magnify the | Lord

According to the rules, it should be pointed as follows:

My soul doth magni- | fy the | Lord

I find this awkward; the first version flows better. However, one could make a case for pointing it this way:

My soul doth | magni- fy_the | Lord

I should think that the rules for pointing would take into consideration syllable stress.

Indeed, I have always understood Anglican chant to be based on accented syllable. In the first half verse, you shift off the first measure for the last three accented syllables.

My soul doth | magnify the | Lord.

The Sidney Nicholson rules say that in the second measure, all syllables are sung on the first note and only the last syllable on the second, but I have never found that in listening to many choirs and recordings.

Also, are there alternative syntaxes for pointing text? The traditional syntax is needlessly difficult to read, and very hard to render using HTML or a word processor.

What's difficult about using an apostrophe as a pointing mark? That's about as easy to render/type as it gets.
With regard to the recording issue: most recordings of Anglican chants are done by cathderal choirs, who often use vartiations on the system decsribed in the aricle. Also, please sign yoru ocmments with four tildes (the ~ symbol). Tompw 14:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
There are no set rules for how to point text - the only requirement is that the words flow well. A "default" has the last has only one syllable per note of any quarter, with all the rest sung on the first note (the intial semibreve, which is sometimes called the "chanting note"). However, as you point our, this can lead to somethign which doesn't flow. What often happens is that the point at which you change note moves back a syllable. Consider the second half of verse three. The "default" would be:
All generations ' shall call 'me bles'sed
... which sounds terrible! So changing before rather than after "blesséd" gives:
All genera'tions  shall ' call me ' blesséd
... which improves the last bit, but leaves "generations" sounding weird. So moving the point of change back a syllable gives:
All gene'rations  shall ' call me ' blesséd
... and that sounds better. Often, when a verse doesn't "flow" it as result of a changing note on a syllable that isn't streessed within a word. "Gene'rations' " works because the accent lies in the middle (generations), and similarly for blesséd. I hope this helps. Tompw 16:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)