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Choral Pedagogical Tools and Vocal Exercises A Practical Guide to Teaching Handel's Messiah

At the bottom of the guide, an articulation key is the poetic sign would be emphasized…and notes
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provided for singers. The rhythmic alterations from marked with would be completely de-emphasized.”
the original notation are demonstrated in measure 3 This marking suggestion is applied to motive “d” of
of motive “a,” as well as in measures 2 and 3 of mo- Figure 1. Above the notes, the poetic stresses are in-
tive “b.” To simplify important concepts that occur dicated, and musical articulation is shown below the
throughout a full score, the study guide extracts motivic notes. The use of agogic marks aids singers to sing
lines and enables the choir to sing each individual line with proper syllabic stress and stylistically appropriate
as an ensemble. With the study guide as the instruction- phrasing.
al example, muscle memory can be ingrained quickly
as singers achieve stylistic accuracy across all variations Articulation in macro- and micro-phrasing
of similar motives. In the following sections, metric ac- The final articulation mark in Figure 1 is a sym-
centuation, phrasing, rhythmic alteration, diction, and bol that indicates specific phrasing. This mark is simply
dynamics are discussed. an arrow attached to the end of a phrase symbol. The
direction mark can be adapted on a macro-phrase level
Metric Accentuation or a micro-phrase level.
Dr. Dennis Schrock describes metric accentuation as In Judy Tarling’s book Baroque String Playing for Inge-
“the practice of stressing or emphasizing certain notes nious Learners, she refers to two Baroque treatises that
and de-emphasizing others as determined by the place- discuss micro/macro phrasing and articulatory deci-
ment of notes in regular metric schemes….” Musical sions: “Both Quantz and Tartini give us an instruc-
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articulation is based on these concepts of strong versus tion that says conjunct notes (i.e., adjacent in pitch,
weak and emphasized versus de-emphasized. Various or scale-like patterns) should be played smoothly, and
Baroque treatises offer modern musicians insight into notes which leap or are separated by larger intervals
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the role of metric accentuation upon musical articula- should be played detached from each other.” The use
tion. In his treatise on clavecin, Saint-Lambert states: of micro/macro phrasing marks are shown in motive
“c” of Figure 1.
Just as a piece of rhetoric is a whole unit which On the micro-level, the two quarter notes in mea-
is most often made up of several parts…so sure 1 of motive “c” behave as an anacrusis figure, or
the melody of a piece of music is a whole unit “pick-up notes.” The micro-level phrase mark creates
which is always composed of several sections. momentum to the downbeat of measure 2. The same
Each section is composed of cadences which mark is used for all motion from the third beat of each
have a complete meaning and are the sentenc- measure to the subsequent downbeat. The macro-level
es of the melody 5 phrase mark is used to indicate the overall direction of
the phrase from beginning to end.
Thus, Saint-Lambert equates the use of musical ar- Based on Baroque period treatises, the marks in the
ticulation in the same manner as one uses grammatical study guide are used to communicate points of empha-
structure. This concept is the starting point for teaching sis and de-emphasis and articulation. As seen in motive
musical expression and specific articulation. An exam- “a” of Figure 1, beats 2 and 3 are de-emphasized due
ple articulation key is provided in Study Guide A (Figure to the metric stress in triple meter.
1) for directors as they create their own content to assist In alignment with Tarling’s interpretation of the
their singers during the rehearsal process. Quantz and Tartini treatises, the two beats in measure
The first two symbols are borrowed from poetic syl- 1 and the anacrusis of measure 1 into measure 2 of mo-
labic stress. The third mark is used to indicate more tive “a” would be detached since they are not stepwise.
substantial length to a note performed staccato. With Whereas the first two pitches of measure 2 would be
reference to Shrock’s use of poetic marks, “In the fol- performed with more connection as they are “conjunct
lowing rhythmic patterns, therefore, notes marked with notes.” The provided example demonstrates the gen-
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CHORAL JOURNAL October 2023 Volume 64 Number 3 25