The Ranums' Panat Times

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Access the other declamation teaching sheets

A handout used at Oberlin Conservatory

These pages were intended primarily for instrumentalists. For that reason, I gave them two versions of a Couperin sarabande that Eric Schwandt gave me, in his lovely musical hand: one version had words; the other had no words, just some interesting slurs.

Just as I thought, the recorder player disregarded all the things I had said about over-the-bar relays, and tried to slur those notes together!

Until, that is, I pointed out that the slurs indicated an exception to the general rule, but not the exception musicians usually imagine. Rather, they indicate that although the usual break (/) after the first note/syllable of the measure is understood as being present, there should be no such end of unit (/) within the notes embraced by the slurs. (In my Harmonic Orator I discuss a similar slur in a sarabande by Brossard, p. 61.) 

Basic declamation principles are presented on Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5

The two versions of Couperin's sarabande are on Page 6, and Page 7

Note: although the scanned pages can be read online, they generally do not print on a single page. If you want to print a specific page, I suggest that you right-click on the illustration, chose the option "Save Picture As...", and save it to a file on your computer (for example, "My Pictures").