Hi all,
What is the most standard way in English to present the text for choral music in a publication? Should it be “Words by,” “Text by,” or “Lyrics by”? Or does it depend on the context?
Thanks,
LAE
I’d suggest “Words by” is probably the best; particularly if the text was a poem before it was set to music.
“Lyrics” are words created specifically for a musical setting. You wouldn’t say “Lyrics by W. Shakespeare”.
There’s also plenty of choral music where it just has the name of the lyricist on the left, and the name of the composer on the right; so established is the convention.
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Thanks! Yes, I am aware of the lyricist/left and composer/right, but in this case I need to use the tags.
Do you treat biblical text the same, for instance “Words: Ps. 25:1-10”?
I’d suggest that by far the most common usage for biblical text is just to have “Psalm 25:1-10” on the left hand side. It needs no explanation, and no one will think it’s the name of the composer!
If there’s an absolute imperative to have some indication, then I suppose: “Words: Eccles. 12:12.”
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I fully agree that it looks better with only the reference. Perhaps one could use Words for other texts and leave nothing for the biblical ones. Otherwise, I’ll just raise the left/right option in the next discussion…
The authorship debate reminds me of the old story of finding a Gideon Bible in a hotel bedside drawer, and on the inside front pages, someone had written “All the best, God.”
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If Oxford (OUP) represents the standard way in English, in the upper left they site only the author (or the source, e.g. “Psalm CXI”, sometimes adding “Tr. by” or “Edited by” on a line beneath, also in u&lc. Composer/arranger gets the same treatment upper right, still in upper case as older editions.
In past editions, all uppercase, but recently the following seems to be their standard
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