Text underlay in our French-language pieces

Multi-syllabic words

The way we decide to cut multi-syllabic words does not follow the French rules of word-cutting but is based on practicality of singing.

Double consonants:

French rule: cut in the middle.

don-ne                gar-rot

Our choice: cut before the consonants, so that the sung syllable is totally under the note.

do-nne                ga-rrot

Several consonants:

French rule: cut between consonants.

puis-que           mal-heur           pour-quoi         cap-tive              mignar-de

Our choice: attach the second consonant to the following syllable, to avoid “singing” on consonants.

pui-sque            ma-lheur           pou-rquoi         ca-ptive              migna-rde

Words ending with E followed by a word starting with a vowel

When a final E is followed by a word starting with a vowel, the E is dropped so that the last syllable of the first word is tied to the beginning of the next.

Example: ‘ingrate alors’.

In scores for French-speaking singers, it would simply be written as above and people would automatically tie both words, which would sound like IN-GRA-TA-LOR.

In our scores, we indicate this in this way to help you: ingrate-alors.