For those who follow (or at least try to follow) and sing the Latin sung Ordinary of the Mass, here's a quick ditty on syllables...
When setting the text to music, I follow what many of the older hymnals do (including chant books like the Liber Usualis, the Graduale Romanum, and the Gregorian Missal), that is, leaving an accent mark over the vowel of the accented syllable for words with three or more syllables. One- and two-syllable words don't need said accent mark, obviously. Two-syllable words are usually accented on the first syllable. Words of three syllables or more, not always the case. For example...
Benedíctus (as in "Benedictus qui venit", or "Blessed is he who comes") - note the accent is over the "i". Might be hard to tell the accent over the dot if the font is small, but it is there. Beh-neh-DEE-ctus. (And note where the "c" is placed in the phonetic spelling, making the consonant cluster "ct" the beginning of the fourth syllable, unlike English, where the "c" would be at the beginning of the third.)
Laudámus (as in "Laudámus te", or "We praise you") - OK, you can see the accent more clearly over the "a", a non-dotted vowel. Lau-DAH-mus.
Some other words that do use the first syllable for accent:
Dómine ("Lord") is one of those words - DOH-mee-meh, or more accurately, DAW-mee-neh.
To many, this may be useless trivia, but one may wonder, "You're using a computer. How do you get the accent marks." A few years back, I went into the abyss that is "Character map", found the accented vowels and wrote down (and eventually memorized, as well as Germanic umlauts) the five vowels in lower case with their accent marks, plus the "sometimes 'y'". They go like this:
á = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0225".
é = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0233".
í = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0237".
ó = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0243".
ú = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0250".
ý = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0253".
Added bonus (albeit this pertains mainly to words in English):
è = (the accent down instead of up, which is often used for "Blessèd" when the two-syllable "Bless-èd" is intended, especially if not written under music, or to give certain past-tense verbs that extra syllable, as in traditional sung English) = Hold the "Alt" key while typing "0232".
In 2008, I did a two-part podcast series, and it still on YouTube to this day, regarding pronunciations. Part 1 and Part 2.
And now, without further ado:
MUSIC FOR HOLY MASS
Entrance hymn: The strife is o'er ("Gelobt sei Gott")
- NOTE: This is not the typical tune for this hymn (the typical tune is "Victory"), but is an alternative tune - the same tune we use with "Christ is the King". The St. Michael Hymnal (which is now nearing the release of its fifth edition, which I am looking forward to), uses both tunes.
Psalm 4: Lord, let your face shine on us (Sam Schmitt) (PDF)
Offertory hymn: Crown him with many crowns ("Diademata")
Communion music:
- responsory: O sing to the Lord, alleluia...(with Psalm 96) (Adam Bartlett)
- or motet: Cantáte Dómino cánticum novum (yes, I put the accent marks in for educational purposes; this, by the way, translates to "Sing to the Lord a new song", and also comes with passages from Psalm 96.) (music by Vincent d'Indy)
Meditation antiphon: Regína caeli (Mode VI)
Recessional hymn: This joyful Eastertide ("Vreuchten")
