Crooked phrases. Deceptive cadences. Internal rhymes. Uneven meters.

Have you ever experienced a song that subverts your sense of “how it’s supposed to go” and yet simultaneously feels totally right?

Music is full of opportunities to throw off expectation and surprise, awaken, and even enlighten listeners. Despite the fact that nursery rhymes and metronomes have trained many of us to expect our music to be even and predictable, most folk traditions have always been (and continue to be) full of asymmetrical elements. Songs can defy our expectations using everything from from uneven measures to sudden shifts of tempo…from spring loaded phrasing to complete changes of groove.

Join this SOS episode as JP shares the delight of songwriting that falls outside the narrow confines of symmetrical composition and ventures into the realm where music and lyrics stay off-balance while remaining on-target.

 

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Tags: Carter Family, lyrics, melody, meter, songwriting, Stravinsky

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Soul Of Songwriting Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.