When I'm writing lyrics, I usually wish to write them out inside their accented patterns, so I know they'll fit well into my song. So let's say they are my lyrics:
Lessons that I learned
Promises I've earned
Those lines would seem like this if I only viewed their accents in speech (I'll capitalize the stressed syllables):
LES-sons that I LEARNED
PRO-mises I've EARNED
Or we can easily write them within their accent patterns to isolate the stresses:
BUM ba ba ba BUM
BUM ba ba ba BUM
I is able to see by writing these out they have a good rhythm, that's obviously important since I'll be placing them in a melody. They both have a similar rhythm, which can be important at the same time, assuming my melodic motif is the similar for both phrases.
So seeing that I have their natural rhythms isolated, how do I apply that to my melody?
Well, I have a few options. The first and third beats of your measure will be the strongest, so we will put our strong stresses there. With the numbers number one representing the beats within a measure, it would resemble this:
1-------------2-------------3------------4
LES-sons----that-I---------LEARNED----
PRO-mises---I've----------EARNED------
That works virtually. Tap your finger and repeat the phrase the sense how it fits. Pretty good, right? The "that" and also the "I've" are receiving some stress but you are not overdoing it, that's okay for these particular particular words.
A common mistake songwriters make should be to take a phrase just like it, that includes a naturally occurring BUM ba ba ba BUM pattern, and attempt to force it in a BUM ba BUM ba BUM pattern, which will force accents within the words "that" and "I've." Those words don't warrant stress. That might appear like this
1-------------2-------------3----------4------------1
LES-sons-----that----------I-----------------------LEARNED
PRO-mises-----------------I'VE ------------------EARNED
If you tap together with your finger while saying the saying this way, you will see the "I" and "I've" have grown to be accenting on account of being about the third beat on the measure. The only time accenting the "I" or "I've" could be valid, could be if you were saying "I'm normally the one learned those lessons. Not you, but me!" That's the affect accenting a pronoun has. It draws care about who the pronoun describes, especially. It's fine should it be truly what you're saying. But should it be not, you should probably give accenting it. In this lyric, we're not saying "it's me, not you," we're simply saying "I've learned lessons and earned promises." So it's probably best whenever we don't accent the pronoun.
Another option we might try should be to put the "LES-" for the one beat plus the "LEARNED" about the second beat. your second beat is correct as a strong syllable therefore, because it is stronger than where all on the unstressed syllables are already placed. But then we'd be cramming three unstressed syllables between one beat, and they'd probably sound very cramped and rushed in that room.
Another mistake should be to put an unstressed portion of the words on a heavily accented beat, much like the first or third beat. Something this way:
3-------------4--------------1------------2------------3-----------4
--------------Les------------SONS--that-I------------LEARNED
--------------Promis---------ES----------I've---------EARNED
Do you hear how unnatural that sounds? It's because the "-sons" in "lessons" should not be accented based on operate's spoken, but since it is falling within the downbeat with the measure, it's sucking up the many accent. Moves similar to this should be avioded at any expense.
Let's return to looking at the stresses properly lining up while using measure. Even when perform it right, we have a choice to produce. As you recall, this blog worked out pretty much:
1---------------2---------------3---------------4
LES-sons------that--I----------LEARNED----
PRO-mises-----I've------------EARNED------
Let's call any particular one Option 1.
Since beats one and three are so strong, and that we have two words that warrant accenting, this option is correct as well:
3-------------4------------1------------2
LES-sons----that-I--------LEARNED-------
PRO-mises---I've---------EARNED--------
Let's call that particular Option 2. There's a subtle difference between both, but there's a difference.
In Option 1, "lessons" and "promises" fall around the downbeat, in order that they carry a a bit more weight than "learned" and "earned." So wrinkles become predominantly concerning the lessons and promises.
The song can be downloaded here.
In Option 2, "learned" and "earned" are around the downbeat, so now those phrases focus around the learning and also the earning, in contrast to what's being learned and earned. Like I said, the real difference is subtle, however it's there.
In addition to selecting which word you intend to be more accented, there is also to realize the beat you set about your melody on affects your song at the same time. In Option 1, the melody starts about the downbeat, which always is likely to have a very complete, fulfilling kind of feeling.
Option 2 starts within the third beat, which feels a somewhat more unstable. The beat you set about your melody on can be another thing that can play in to the meaning of your lyrics, so you have some decisions to create.
The proper way to verify any from the information you learned hee, should be to tap a beat and sing the lines as you're writing them to generate sure the appropriate musical and speech stresses are aligned. Knowing these concepts will assist you to out a great deal when trying to determine why something does not work. But at the end on the day, you typically want to have confidence in ears to enjoy you inside right direction.
