Most importantly, words aren’t just a bunch of letters strung together, they can actually “sing” in a lyric! Some words even sound like the emotion or sound you’re trying to express…”hiss” is one that comes to mind. These words are called “Onomatopoeia<\/a>“…other examples are clang, pop, ding, wham, splonk, and splat.<\/p>\n You may have heard the term “scan” in a songwriting context. When a line in a song scans well, it has a flow to it, where the sounds of the words, the vowels<\/a> and consonants all flow together beautifully. A line that scans well is easily sung. One that doesn’t, feels like a tongue twister!<\/p>\n The wrong word in the wrong position can completely blow a line….it can throw the tempo and feel off entirely. A lot of this comes from a songwriter not spending enough time and attention on the lyrics, including misplaced vowels and consonants, and bad placement altogether.<\/p>\n Oh, oh. We’re in English 101 class again \ud83d\ude42 What is a vowel? Do you remember? A,E,I,O,U and sometimes Y. In the English language<\/a> you can get two different sounds from each of these vowels, and different sounds from combinations of them. Bonus! And what are consonants? All of the other letters. I’m going to assume you know what a syllable is \ud83d\ude42 What I want to discuss here is what vowels, consonants and syllables have to do with WHERE you place a word in a lyric and HOW you use it!<\/p>\n Let’s look at any old word…how about the word “it”. The “i” in “it” is a short sound…so an easy rule to remember is “short sound, short note”. For instance, you don’t want to sing the word “it” over a whole note (4 beats). Not only is the “i” in “it” short, but the word has only one syllable. And NOT ONLY THAT, but the word itself is not all that significant. What does that tell you? Don’t put it in a powerful position! For instance, here’s a simple line:<\/p>\n Don’t you know it<\/p>\n If you say this line in conversation, which words would you stress or emphasize? Probably “don’t” and “know”…the “you” and the “it” are not as significant. If you emphasized the phrase this way: don’t YOU know IT…it wouldn’t sound right!<\/p>\n Now look at that line again from another perspective. Which words could you place the longer musical notes<\/a> under? The same words that are emphasized:<\/p>\n doooonn’t you knoowww it<\/p>\n The word “you” could also have a longer note under it. But the little word “it” will never work that way, certainly not very well! Words that end with a long vowel<\/a> and no consonant, like “you” or “goodbye” work well at the end of lines, especially if the note at the end of a line is held for any length of time. Words with a hard consonant ending will SOMETIMES work, as in the example “don’t” above. “Don’t” ends with a hard “t”, but because it has a long vowel sound of “o” in it, the word can be sung over a longer note, and the “t” not sounded until the very end of the note. But it can also be sung over a shorter note, with a very quick ending. So let the natural rhythm of your lyrics dictate the flow of your melody…don’t force them into positions where they are uncomfortable!<\/p>\n Now let’s take a look at a verse of a song you probably won’t know, and you try to figure out how the melody might work with it:<\/p>\n Is this goodbye?
\nWell we haven’t said a thing all day
\nIt’s almost time
\nSo I’m wondering when the dam will break
\n(“Let It Go” Copyright \u00a9 1996 I. Woloshen SOCAN)<\/p>\n
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