Well a strange bright yellow object appeared in the sky this morning and about scared the heck out of me!!! :) Working on a new song and thinking about "prosody".
What the heck is "prosody"??? And why is it important to me in my songwriting. Lack of prosody in songs is one of my major pet peeves when I listen to a song!!
Here is my definition of "prosody": The perfect marriage between lyric and melody!
That means not putting a three syllable word over one note, putting an accent in musically that causes you to put the accent on the wrong syllable of a word, etc. When you have "prosody" the song should just roll off the singers tongue easily. It can help to make a song "conversational" which is VERY important to me in my songwriting. One trick that I try to use to make a song "conversational" is SPEAK the line!! When you speak a sentence it has a natural "melody" to the words...you don't speak in monotone (well my old biology teacher did in Jr. High but that's another story..kind of like "Bueller!!" LOLOL) but I digress...Every sentence will go up and down when spoken naturally. I try to create a melody that somewhat mirrors the natural speaking tones and notes of that sentence. Combining that with a melody that mirrors the meter you can create songs that not only sing easily but are easy to listen to, sound natural and genuine and NOT FORCED! :)
Anyway...back to my song that I'm working on for the day. As always...you mileage may vary :)
Remember: Write more...whine less!!
Write on!!
Brink
ah ha - it has a name - Prosody! Learning more every day.
ReplyDeleteHey, Brink I'm enjoying going back and reading older posts on here. I agree 100% on the words perfectly syncing with the rhythm. I hear songs where a simple elimination of a word would make the line tightly sync with the melody and rhythm. When I hear a singer struggling to fit in all the words in a line, I think to myself... why didn't the writer take a little more time and make the line fit the rhythm?
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, someone I knew who was a poet got up on stage in a coffee house, and recited the verses to several of my songs, as poetry. At the time, I thought it sounded very affected, but I think it was more that the person was trying to inject drama into songs that weren't meant to be dramatic. He was reciting them in a sing-song inflection. I guess I should have been able to rise above all of that, and be pleased that he recognized a poets rhythms in my songs.