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Old December 4th, 2006
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solidwalnut solidwalnut is offline
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Playing guitar for what seems like forever.
 
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  Syallable counting

Quote:
Originally Posted by lcjones
Line 1) When the long days are shortened by summer's last call
Line 2) And the maple trees blush with the coming of fall
Line 3) As evenings cool down breathing autumn's sweet air
Line 4) We'll be as warm as two.... hearts in good care
Hi Les--

Yep. I see what you mean in reference to the sequence of events. The lyric makes more sense now.

But the timing issue that I see with this is in the fourth line. Of course, with artistic license, who cares?? I suppose though that if someone were just a writer and not also an artist, or if they're trying to get their lyric 'out there' then this might be an issue.

What am I talking about? Syllable counting.

And I know you probably have a hold on this stuff, I just wanted to comment in the hopes that some other writers might get in on this topic.

In syllable counting, it's not often that the syllables in a line must strictly match the others, but rather that the lines only differ by a syllable or two. After all, lyrics need to be conversational--they need to come off as if you were physically telling the story. Artistic license will take care of any line that is a syllable or so off.

But of course rules are made to be broken. I guess it's good to understand rules before they are, though, so you know that you broke them!

But your fourth line is---4 syllables, at least, shy of the others. Were your ....s in the line indicating that there is room for something, but you just didn't quite know what that might be?

Steve


Steve Cass
Solid Walnut Music/ASCAP

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