{"id":159,"date":"2018-07-26T17:30:04","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T00:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/?p=159"},"modified":"2018-07-26T17:31:02","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T00:31:02","slug":"meter-is-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/26\/meter-is-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Meter is Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to writing poetry, there are many students who abhor meter. I think that there are multiple reasons for this.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is that some of those students have been influenced by English teachers, who I theorize often dislike our counting-based friend meter because they\u2019re English teachers, not math teachers. Personally, out of my three English teachers who covered meter, two said that they disliked or were bad at it. When even the teacher hates a certain topic in their own domain, students know that they\u2019re in for a rough ride and get a negative first impression. <\/span><\/p>\n

The second is that nobody really appreciates meter because it\u2019s rarely addressed. When reading poetry, you identify the meter and then move on without noticing its contributions to the meaning. Unlike ubiquitous literary elements like diction and figurative language, rhythm is rarely discussed outside poetry, so you probably don\u2019t think about it enough to really understand it. But it still influences us in ways that we seldom notice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, meter lies in the ambiguous space between language and mathematics. It\u2019s formulaic enough to get boring and supposedly restricting (especially with so many names to memorize), but not formulaic enough to provide the comfort of reliability. In trying to encompass both areas of study, it fails to please fans of either.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, the fact that meter is intangible makes it difficult to master. There\u2019s usually a definite right or wrong answer, but there\u2019s not a definite way to find it. You can\u2019t see stressed and unstressed syllables, only hear them, making them intuitive and abstract. (Protip: It helps to draw \/\\\/ shapes while you recite a word\/line. Up represents stressed, while down represents unstressed.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The last two things can also be said for music, which is undeniably artistic but still has roots in counting. Like meter, music requires us to recognize the intangible; we can intuitively tell whether a note sounds right, whether we\u2019re off-tune or out-of-sync, etc. Yet music is widely loved, and many students not only appreciate musical lyrics and melodies, but also play musical instruments themselves. So do people hate meter just because it universally sucks, or because of the way that it\u2019s taught and a lack of understanding?<\/span><\/p>\n

Meter is just another word for rhythm, and rhythm lies at the heart of music. For instance, song lyrics are poems sung to music<\/span>\u2014<\/span>but you can\u2019t just slap a random poem onto any melody. The words and melody must be joined by a shared rhythm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Observe the meter in the lyrical composition of <\/span>A Whole New World<\/span><\/i>:
\n<\/span>\u2014 \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u222a \u2014
\n<\/span>Unbelievable sights
\n<\/span>\u2014 \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u222a \u2014 \u222a<\/span>
\n<\/span>Indescribable feeling
\n<\/span>\u2014 \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u222a \u2014 \u222a<\/span>
\n<\/span>Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
\n<\/span>\u2014 \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u2014<\/span>
\n<\/span>Through an endless diamond sky<\/span><\/p>\n

Note the metric repetition in the first three lines. The places where the melody repeats match the places where the meter repeats because the melody is aligned with complimentary meter. Lyrics aren\u2019t just about writing the right number of syllables; they\u2019re also about having the meter of the lyrics fit the rhythm of the music.<\/span><\/p>\n

Try singing the following lines to the tune of \u201cUnbelievable sights \/ Indescribable feeling\u201d:
\n<\/span>\u222a \u2014 \u222a \u222a \u2014 \u222a
\n<\/span>Incredible wonder
\n<\/span>\u222a \u2014 \u222a \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u222a
\n<\/span>Amazing euphoria<\/span><\/p>\n

The number of syllables is the same, but the meter is different. Even if your sense of meter is only average, the lyrics should sound off because the song forces you to stress the wrong syllables. <\/span>Musical rhythm has complimentary meter that its lyrics should follow. Academic environments often overlook the greatest and most common accomplishment of meter: making the poem sound good. Listening to music, however, invites us to really appreciate how awesome a rhythmic poem can sound.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even if we remove the poetry, meter can still be applied to music without lyrics. In its iconic line, the <\/span>Pink Panther<\/span><\/i> theme song uses perfect iambs:<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u222a \u2014
\n<\/span>\u222a \u2014
\n<\/span>\u222a \u2014 \u222a \u2014 \u222a \u2014
\n<\/span>\u222a \u2014 \u222a \u2014 <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

A song\u2019s rhythm is the equivalent of a poem\u2019s meter. Meter is omnipresent.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way that we study rhythm can definitely make it seem more formulaic than it is. There are lots of fancy words (anapest, dactyl, pyrrhic) that students might have to memorize, not to mention variations such as caesura and enjambment. Counting the number of syllables in a line can be tedious. However, if you can get past these negative associations, you might be able to better appreciate its effect on poetry and eventually write rhythmic poems with ease. Think about meter with your heart rather than with your head. Consider the sound, not just whether it falls into the category of iambic tetrameter or trochaic hexameter or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t say that writing poetry with consistent meter can\u2019t be difficult. But if you\u2019re musically inclined\u2014whether you listen to music, play an instrument, or compose\u2014you might be closer to mastering poetic rhythm than you think.<\/span>\f<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to writing poetry, there are many students who abhor meter. I think that there are multiple reasons for this. The first is that some of those students have been influenced by English teachers, who I theorize often dislike our counting-based friend meter because they\u2019re English teachers, not math teachers. Personally, out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing-and-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceruleanchameleon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}