Talk:Hymn
Well, I favor combining this page, and the page "Hymn" somehow but don't care how.
- done ChuckGiffen 09:07, 10 April 2006 (PDT)
Discussion moved from first version of the page to here
I suggest that links to the Hymn Society, and Hymn Society of America are appropriate somewhere on this page.
- done, although the Hymn Society of America does not have a web page and a search seems to indicate its last publication was around 1988 (is it defunct?).
- ChuckGiffen 09:07, 10 April 2006 (PDT)
It seems to be the model for CPDL to name scores for the incipit of the text, and the name of the composer. Because of the interchangeability of tunes and texts, I suggest that where there is a specific tune name, that unless there is a firm link between a text and tune, that the pages be named using a model
Tune_Name Meter (composer, or if composer not know, source)
I further suggest that it is appropriate for the page for a hymn tune to include a list of texts to which the tune is associated.
In my opinion, items which should be linked to, or discussed in this page:
Fuguing tunes, Office Hymns, descants and fauxbourdons.
External links
Cyber hymnal Hyms on the Oremus site
- done ChuckGiffen 09:07, 10 April 2006 (PDT)
Hymn society in America defunct? No. I think it may have renamed itself around 1988, to "The Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada"; I've added link to the website hosted at Boston University.
ns 2006 April 10 1752 CDT
This being still Lent, I must confess that before writing what I first wrote on this page, I failed to consider the content on WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymns
How should we revise this page to avoid needless duplication?
ns 2006 April 11 0926 CDT
Spaces and dots in hymn meters
I have some reservations about your use of spaces with hymn meters (e.g. 7 7.7 7. D in place of the more succinct and readable 77.77.D). When I learned the subject, I understood that space was only used when the number of syllables per line was 10 or more - thus 11 12.12 10 - or (in some cases) as a separator (for grouping purposes, much like the period/dot). While I generally agree about the use of a period/dot (as a more-or-less logical grouping of lines according to musical and/or poetic considerations), it seems that the application of these principles is rather spotty. For example, I don't understand your giving the meter of Comfort, comfort, ye my people as 8 7 8 7 7 7 8 8 when it seems very clear, both musically and poetically that this is a hymn of couplets and its meter should be 87.87.77.88. For another example, (Refuge) which is a tune for the Isaac Watts setting of Pslam 91, you give the meter as 8.8.8.8.8.8.8 - but this is quite misleading ... The actual text is a pair of rhyming couplets (88.88), but in the tune the second line of the first couplet is repeated once, and the second line of the second couplet is repeated twice. I would probably give this hymn meter as 888.8888 - some might give it as 88(8).88(88), the parentheses indicating repetition/extension. Of course, there are many conventions - the questions involve which to use, which not to use, and which to modify ... all coherently (as if that were possible!).
Also, I note that much of your current efforts seem to have ingnored or made obsolete our earlier work on Category:Hymn tunes and Category:Hymn meters, along with the discussions of that time. Are you intending to convert all of that work over to your system?
I'd really like to help out, but right now feel quite confused as to what you are doing and where we are going.
ChuckGiffen 10:52, 5 February 2007 (PST)
At the moment, what I am doing Chuck, is to try to begin building a consensus on what the principles governing how Hymn meter should be handled on CPDL are, and how they should be applied. As far as I can tell, this discussion has not been completed, CPDL is a less valuable resource because consensus has not yet been reached. I think there need to be some prinicples, and the body of Hymns (and I am excluding the polyphonic treatment of Latin office hymns here) is small enough to make it not too daunting a project to go back and retrofit these principles to existing pages. Just as the page which hosts this talk page, is a work in progress, my views are too, and are not yet fixed.
I propose that the governing principles for determining the primary meter of a hymn tune should include the following.
1) The determination be made on the musical structure of the tune, without consideration of any text associated with the tune should be disregarded. I agree that the Winkworth's translation of Olearius' text Comfort, comfort, ye my people has a meter of 87.87.77.88. I am less convinced that the tune necessarily has this same meter, because even though Mrs. Winkworth's text is four couplets, I see no musical reason that the tune would not fit a text whose stanzas consist of eight individual lines (and at the moment, I can't think of one).
2) WIKI software is geared towards text, and sorts initial characters, so that "7" and "76" sort to the same heading. My experience with computer technology suggests to me that it is advisable to provide for possible changes in sorting algorithms, or to provide for porting the site to another software platform which might sort "7" and "76" differently. The most expedient way to do this seems to be to use a line separator from early on, and since spaces are already used as separators in meters where one or more lines contains 10 or more units, keeping the same character as a separator makes sense to me. Further, I suspect that setting the meters solid (as in "76.76.D") was really dictated by typesetting: when setting handset type, "76.76.D" required seven pieces of type and taken considerably less time and material than setting "7 6. 7 6. D" which required more than fifty percent more type, and time (7 characters for set solid; 11 characters for spaced out). The considerations do not have quite the same weight in the digital age, when it is almost as quick to set them open, as to set them solid. As to the category I created for Refuge, I ignored the text in considering the meter, and had not yet realized that the space alone was sufficient as a separator. But I do agree that the text is LM - two rhyming couplets.
3) There is no need for a page containing a hymn (which term I use for a combination of text and tune) and the page containing a tune or setting only (no lyrics) would have exactly the same meters. In the case of Refuge, this is probably a Long meter tune, and a category with that meter should be added to the page with Watts' text. But the tune itself is not limited to LM, and in fact proper consideration of the musical structure of the tune would lead to a different meter. I arrived at "8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8" (in the form I now propose) based my preliminary analysis, and should have written it as "LM", or perhaps "LMD" depending upon the musical sturcture.
4) I am on record as favoring inclusion of the primary meter in the page name of the Hymn tune and setting on CPDL for CPDL, so that a page containing just the setting is more profitably titled "Refuge LM (John Moreton)". But categories are easy to apply, and there is no impediment I can see to to adding how ever many categories of meter to a page one wishes.
My aim is to make it as easy as possible for one who has not spent as much time as you and I in studying hymn meters, to find tunes, settings, and Hymns as quickly and efficiently as possible, with as few page clicks as can be managed.
Noel Stoutenburg 1930 GMT 5 January, 2007