  An analytic calculation of the breaking of excited chromoelectric flux-tubes
is performed in an harmonic oscillator approximation and applied to predict the
dynamics of all $J^{PC}$ low-lying gluonic excitations of mesons (hybrids).
Widths, branching ratios and production dynamics of some recently discovered
$J^{PC} = 1^{-+}, 0^{-+}$ and $1^{--}$ mesons are found to be in remarkable
agreement with these results. We introduce the selection rules that can be used
to understand the systematics of numerical decay calculations and we find
possible significant breaking of these rules for specific channels that may
enable enhanced production and detection of hybrids.
