[39.]—Many writers place a slur over eighth notes, as well as quarters and longer notes, when sung to one syllable. But this is quite unnecessary with hooked notes unless, as in the preceding example, a syllable is sung to a whole group and part of another, or parts of two groups. Redundancy of slurs—very common in old music—is confusing rather than helpful.
Intelligibility depends much upon getting the syllables exactly under or over the notes to which they are to be sung.
[40.]—Syllables sung to notes extending over more space than themselves should be followed by dots if forming a complete word, and by strokes, or hyphens, if parts of a word. See preceding examples.
Open Score to Short Score.
[41.]—In transcribing from open score to short score, a single sound sung by two voices simultaneously beginning and ending at the same time, should, if a whole note, be represented by two note-heads linked; if a half note or shorter note, by having two stems, one up and the other down:
Fig. 29.