I wish we had time in this course to go into the niceties of creating melody, to go into the niceties of creating harmonic progressions. But in six weeks, there's only so much we can do. you may have to wait for another time for that, but that doesn't mean that we aren't going to deal with what this song can be. We're going to take a look here first at melodic rhythm. That is to say, how these syllables that we have created are going to find their home within the context of musical rhythm. remember that we've seen this whole thing about setting. About preserving the natural shape of the language. About your stressed syllables occurring in stress positions in the bars. And your unstressed syllables occurring in unstressed positions in the bars. Stressed positions. In 4-4 time, four quarter notes. Downbeat, third beat, stressed. Second beat, fourth beat, unstressed. And then, as we start subdividing those quarter notes into 8th notes, 16th notes, that same relationship is retained. As we'll see when we start talking about phrasing. But for now, let's just work with melodic rhythm. Now, we could simply do this with a metronome or a simple drumbeat. But I've constructed a little bit of a a very simple, two-chord loop. That's a four-bar loop going A minor for the first bar, A minor for the second bar, G major for the third bar, G major for the fourth bar. And it sounds like this. [MUSIC] 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4 start again. [MUSIC] And so, I just keep this running. [MUSIC] And not because these are going to be the chords, but because this kind of mood, this A minor to flat 7 feels kind of longing. [MUSIC] It feels a little bit wandery to me. [MUSIC] And so, I thought, you know, let's just give this a try because it feels like it's got sort of that ambiance that this that this lyric seems to want to express. [MUSIC] So, first thing is just generally, how are we going to get these syllables fitting into this four bar sequence? [MUSIC] One possibility might be this. [MUSIC] 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4. [MUSIC] I hear you out there crying. [MUSIC] Begging let me in. [MUSIC] You make your way between the cracks. [MUSIC] I hear you moan, I hear you laugh. [MUSIC] Singing as you pass. [MUSIC] Oh, Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] Oh, Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] And so you try that. Say, mm,[MUSIC] boring. [MUSIC][SOUND] You know, some great melody I think he's going to have to come in. Save that one. [MUSIC] So, maybe we can double that melodic rhythm because we're talking about the wind like which is moving. [MUSIC] And it really sounds like the wind is taking a big nap with the note values that long, so maybe. [MUSIC] 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4. Ready, 2, 3, 4, 4. [MUSIC] I hear you out there crying. [MUSIC] Begging let me in. [MUSIC] You make your way between the cracks. [MUSIC] I hear you moan, I hear you laugh. [MUSIC] Singing as you pass. [MUSIC] Oh, Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] That felt alright. [MUSIC] But there was something that I kind of liked about that. [MUSIC] Half time feel. [MUSIC] Now, I wonder what would happen if I put a little bit of that maybe in the 4th line. [MUSIC] Trying like this. [MUSIC] I hear you out there crying. [MUSIC] Begging let me in. [MUSIC] You make your way between the cracks. [MUSIC] I hear you moan, I hear you laugh. [MUSIC] Singing as you pass. [MUSIC] Oh, Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] Hobo Wind. That might work. That might work. And as a, as a melodic rhythm, ba-da-da-da-da, singing as you pass, oh, Hobo Wind. So, we have note values there, a series of note values that I think support this whole notion of the motion of the wind. And at the same time, we have all of this other stuff, the inserted lines, the rhyme types and so on, keeping the gate open and making it feel like it's in motion. There's something about it that doesn't quite feel right to me yet, and I'm not sure what it is. But, I do know that because I've got my note values, now I can maybe start thinking about my bridge. Because what I need are note values that are in contrast with what I've got. [MUSIC] I hear you out there crying. [MUSIC] Begging let me in. Ba-da-da-da-da-da, ba-da, da-da-da. So, the note values there are, you know, sort of moderate, ba-da, da-da, da-da. So, we're dealing with, you know, quarter notes and a few 8th notes here and there, some dotted quarters, maybe even a half note here and there. So, let's just say that we have 8th notes, quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, half notes. Say we've got those. [SOUND] What have I got? Well, I've got 8th notes, quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and some half notes. What's different than that? 16th notes. Ba-da-da-da. 32nd, I can't go that fast. Wait, what else? Whole notes. Whole notes are different than that. Really long notes. So that if I want to create a bridge that goes like this, maybe I want some long notes. So, that now I have two entries into my brain that say, okay, what do I need the bridge to do? I need it to be a contrast in melodic rhythm and I need it to introduce or to, to support the notion of the wind as a singer. If the notion of hymns is going to make any sense at all. And I love hymns, because I'm on a religious quest, so I love hymns. A religious quest for vagrancy,[LAUGH] for sin, for experience, an obsessive quest. Hymns. So, what if in my bridge I ask the woman to sing? [MUSIC] Here I am listening to the wind. [MUSIC] Sing. [MUSIC] There it is. [MUSIC] Sing. [MUSIC] All night long. [MUSIC] Sing. [MUSIC] What if that's all it is? What if that's all the bridge is? Sing long. Consonants rhyme. Sing all night long. Sing. Oh boy, would that ever be good to say, sing all night long. Sing, sing your song. Because song rhymes with long. Whoa, brilliant. Except, one, we want the bridge to move us into the next section and sing all night long, sing, sing your song is stable. It says, okay, I'm done. Hold it. We're done. And so sing, line 1, all night long, line 2, sing, line 3, does two things. If we just leave it there, it gives us an odd number of lines and it gives us a shorter line, so to speak. It asks us to match, and we don't. And so, it just tumbles us right into the third verse. So, let's just try that. Let's come out of the second verse and see what happens with that as a bridge. [MUSIC] I wonder where you're going. [MUSIC] I wonder where you've been. [MUSIC] I think of hearts you might have touched. [MUSIC] The ones afraid, the ones unloved. [MUSIC] The ones you couldn't move. [MUSIC] O Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] Hobo Wind. [MUSIC] Sing, all night long. [MUSIC] Sing. [MUSIC] I wish you'd take me wandering. That's not bad. But wow, there certainly sure was a long space for our can of guitar players between the end of the bridge and and, and the next the next verse. And when you start talking about letting the arrangement ride over the hill with its lance lowered to save the town that wasn't written, or wasn't constructed properly. I'd rather have that bridge, not take all of that time. And maybe just as simple as, well, why are you still working with that four bar, four bar thing. It might be that. But there may be some ways to to deal with that. But right now, it feels to me like we have something that could be an effective contrast in terms of melodic rhythm. And it also seems like it's saying the right thing, that it's talking to the wind as a singer who's out there crying and moving and touching and so on. And I want to go on the wanderings and all of that stuff. So, it feels to me like we've got, with this next step of finding a melodic rhythm, and note that we have no melody at all. And again, you know, that's going to be something that that we're going to experiment with. But at this point, it feels like we've taken the next step toward creating something. Now note, for you out there who say, well, I'm only a lyricist. Note that when you start working with melodic rhythm, you're still working as a lyricist. That is to say, you don't have to know how to sing. You don't have to know how to play an instrument. All you have to know is how to press play on a loop of some kind, or a drum loop, and work your lyric in melodic rhythm and find out what that feels like. And then, if you should go on to find chords and melody, great. If you're co-writing and can now give that to a co-writer, you'll be aiding and abetting the process by saying, this is how it lays in melodic rhythm to me. And then, for the composer, it's simply a matter of saying, oh, okay, that actually could suggest melody to me, that actually shows me how things can move there. And that's going to be a real boon in creating whatever harmony and whatever melody I can, I can work with. As opposed to just handing the composer a sheet of paper and saying, here. And then, the composer not understanding how you want it to move and all of your thought process. Now is going to probably give you something that you certainly didn't expect. And sometimes those surprises are not the best. So, try to create your melodic rhythm, maybe in advance. Particularly, when you write lyrics first, maybe in advance of creating the melody. Maybe in advance of creating the harmony. As I say, this could have been done simply with a drum loop or a metronome, but I kind of liked the ambiance of this this little loop and so I used that to start moving us along.
