Syllable Control Series - Part 1: Intro to Razor-Sharp Lyric Metering
1. Setting up for Syllable Control Within the Meter
Syllable control is the deliberate and thoughtful planning of how to fit words into the meter of a song. And just like any genre, Southern Gospel needs it as much as any!
For example, let’s say you and I are going to write a song that has a chorus with 8 lines. The layout or the chorus would look something like this:
The next thing we would consider is creating “little buckets” on the lines to hold the syllables. Taken a step further, our song layout then looks like this:
At this point, if we began to write the song, all we need to do is fill the buckets with syllables of words. For example, the line, “Troublesome times are here” would fill 6 buckets.
2. Fine-Tuning the Template
It would be one boring song if every line had the same amount of buckets, wouldn’t it? That means we need to mix it up a little bit. So let’s give some lines more THAN others, shall we? Mixing it up, we might have something like this now:
For example, you’ll notice that at the end of the fourth line, we’re probably going to use a common chord and hold it for a few beats to make a statement. Let’s combine some of those buckets into one.
3. Further Adjusting – Figure it out as You Go
That right there is a pretty good start. If you’ve been a gospel songwriter for while, this comes pretty intuitively for you. But every now and then, it’s good to take a look and remember why we do things the way we do them.
Some songs have very few words, but say an awful lot with those few words; other songs rat-tat-tat-tat the words and jibber-jabber a lot of chatter, but convey meaning at the same time.
Why do these songs that exist at the extremes of the “syllable control spectrum” actually work? We’ll begin taking a look at it next time. Write some great songs!