Re: Style for Editorial Rests

For curiosity, does your director *discourage* stagger breathing? That 
would seem to maintain the flow of music as the composer (presumably) 
intended, while recognising the basses don't breathe through their ears.

Cheers,

Colin

On 2026-06-22 18:14, Gabriel Ellsworth wrote:
>
> Thanks for clarifying!
>
>
> The “shave off” colloquialism in my previous message may not be all 
> that clear.“Shave off” means “subtract from the composer’s original, 
> full note value” and release (breathe) early.
>
>
> Why are early releases such a frequent phenomenon in my choir’s 
> performances of Renaissance polyphony? Because composers in the 
> 16thcentury often wrote very long stretches of music, much longer than 
> a human being can reasonably sing in one breath, without any rests. 
> See, for example, the image inmy May email 
> <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2026-05/msg00080.html>. 
> In our choir’s modern practice, standardized early releases enable us 
> to have, for example, all altos breathe at the same time. This means 
> that all consonants land at the same time!
>
>
>