PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Woodshedding - Learning to Play! Lyric Techniques: "I Got Rhythm" (Part 2)

In the first discussion of Ira Gershwin's lyrics, “I Got Rhythm”, I looked at the song's rhyme scheme. After writing that post (found via this link), “I Got Rhythm” was defiantly stuck in my brain and, eventually, I found myself wondering what would happen if I used the format of Ira's lyrics as a starting place for a song of my own. And so this second journey began.

The link is below for anyone who'd like to listen to the resulting song.

• Tomorrow I'll Be Fine

And if anyone should like to gain a bit more of an insight into how the song was created, please read on...



How I Used Ira's Lyric Model...

Before I could set about using the lyric format of “I Got Rhythm”, it was necessary to analyse the lyrics' structure more fully.

To make things a bit easier, I ignored the introductory set-up verse for the moment and began working on the refrain. The refrain section is in AABA format and can be broken down as follows...

• Each of the three A-sections consists of 4-lines and ends with the phrase “Who could ask for anything more".
• The A-sections also all pretty much follow the same poetic meter (I'll talk about meter in a little more detail shortly).
• Each A-section presents a list of items or qualities that the singer possesses.
• The B-section is the 4-line section that begins with the phrase, “Old man trouble”.

Looking at the poetic meter (i.e. the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables), I put the following table together.



The A-sections are interesting in that they are a mixture of 2- and 3-feet lines.



Back to the lyrics of “I Got Rhythm”...

In the first A section, A1 in the table above, the stressed syllables follow the meter pattern 2, 2, 2 (or 3), 3.

The third phrase is interesting because some singers sing it as two strong syllables (as in, “I got my man”) and sometimes singers sing it as three strong syllables (as in, “I got my man” where 'my' and 'man' a both pronounced distinctly and with stress.

Musically, the second option of three stresses as described above, requires two longer held notes. Using note values, a couple of possibilities for this rhythm in 4/4 are...



Since George Gershwin wrote the music for “I Got Rhythm” in 2/2 (i.e. cut common time), it seemed like a good idea to consider the above in this time. Translating it into 2/2 gives...



The musical option that I've numbered (4) above appealed to me (as a melodic-rhythm possibility for my composition) for two reasons.

• The first reason is that beginning the melody after the downbeat (beat 1) usually enhances rhythm. The synchopation in George Gerswhin's original tune demonstrates this well.
• The second reason is that if I use the basic rhythm shown by option (4), the melody's first strong beat occurs in bar 2. This creates what lyric theorists call back-heavy lyrics. The effect of back-heavy lyrics is that they help enhance the emotional content of the words. (This could be useful!)

My favourite lyric writing topics are: tomorrow, sunshine, good times, people laughing, blue skies, sunny days, etc. Playing around with these and trying to fit some phrases to the "/ - / /" melodic rhythm, I eventually arrived at “Give me sunshine”. I decided to use that as the opening phrase.

Modelling Ira, I began the next couple of phrases with “Give me”. That meant that I only had to find words for the last two strong beats in lines 2 and line 3. The first three phrases of lyrics would then be completed.

After some playing around, and keeping in mind that the first A-section always works well if it is rich in imagery, I arrived at...


While “Freedom” in line 3 is not strictly two strong syllables sitting side by side, the variation worked for me so I decided to keep it. Also, the above lines have a rhyme scheme of aaxa. Ira had no end-of-line rhyme in his lyrics. Again, though, what I came up with seemed to work well enough so I thought I'd stay with it for the time being.

Where to go with the second A-section?

Still keeping the list format, I thought about where I could next go. Since the list in the first A-section sets the scene with imagery like props on a stage, I thought it might be useful to use the second A-section to give some personal insight. That is, what is important to the singer? This led to the following verse.


In this second section, I followed Ira's formula of not beginning line 2 with the anticipated repetition of “Give me”. Because the first A-section had an aaxa rhyme scheme, normal practice would be to repeat that rhyme scheme in this second section. Try as I might, though, the phrases I liked were reluctant to rhyme and those phrases that rhymed, I didn't like. As a consequence, I set about linking words through repeated consonants (g, v, f, l). I hoped that this would provide sufficient sonic texture.

The third A-section was next to arrive. For verse development, I wanted this section to have at least one big-picture idea; additionally, I wanted to emphasise the concepts of 'tomorrow' and being 'fine' because, hopefully, this would give a feeling of 'pay-off' at the completion of the lyrics. In this last A-section, I also allowed a couple of extra weak syllables in the lyrics. From experience, I knew that these would create a slightly modified melody and that this, in turn, would help boost the feeling of musical development.

The bridge came along after the three A-sections. As with most of my bridges, I find that it's a good place to get more philosophical. Where Ira used an xaax rhyme scheme in the bridge, I settled on having end-of-line rhymes for the first two lines and then that rhyme to link to a rhyme in the middle of the third line (treasure / measure / adventure). Like Ira, I left the final word on the last line unrhymed so that it could pick up a rhyme in the final A-section. To my ears, 'wine' finds two partners in the third A-section; one with '-rise' and one with 'fine'.

• With the song lyric essentially now complete, I found myself pondering whether or not to have an introductory verse. I didn't think that I really needed it because the lyrics that developed seemed to be self-explanatory. That being said, though, I've never before written an introductory verse to a song. This seemed to be a good opportunity.

Early on in writing the introductory section, I decided to have the verse spoken rather than sung (this is something that sometimes happens in opera). As a consequence, I needed rhymes to hold the verse together but not to intrude on the conversational tone. In the end, I settled on mostly asymmetrical perfect rhymes: makes me/takes me, eyes/surprise, deep/keep.

Below is the completed lyric. While it was inspired by the format of Ira Gershwin's lyrics and George Gershwin's melody for “I Got Rhythm”, my work is also unique in ways that stand outside of the format used by the Gershwins.



Now it's time to compose the music...

I hope that this insight will be useful somewhere for someone.
Noel

Thank you so much for sharing your process, Noel. Really fascinating stuff.

An excellent analysis and tutorial Noel.

Thanks for going to such detail. This is very helpful.

Reminds me of some of the Pat Pattison Lyric Writing stuff.

Thanks a lot sir!

Hello Noel,

This is wonderful information! Thank you. As a Jazz singer I am continually fascinated, inspired and challenged by the art of musical expression through rhythm. How the feel and emotion of a melody is transformed by the use of rhythm amazes me. Your explanation and illustration of your process is helpful as I continue my exploration of musical expression!

Pauline
PG Music Team

Thanks for having a read, Will.

Noel



Hi Trev,

Thanks. Glad that some of it might be useful!

Regards,
Noel

Steve,

I'm glad you mentioned Pat Pattison, he's a friend. We're pretty lucky here in Melbourne (Australia) because Pat regularly visits the city. The net result is that I've been to heaps of weekend workshops with Pat over the last dozen years. He's awesome. He's also the one who taught me how to write lyrics. I hold him in extremely high regard.

Thanks for having a read and mentioning Pat.
Noel

Hi Pauline,

Thanks for having a read and for commenting. I'd love to be a jazz singer.... if only I knew how! You're very lucky.

In relation to understanding the nuances of rhythm, that's a really interesting comment. I find myself sitting here reflecting on it now as I type. The most important thing things that I can think of from a lyric placement perspective, and I guess that could also be useful to singing, are...

ONE
Syncopation pretty much always strengthens the rhythmic value of a note. Whether the note is before or after the beat, experience tells me that this seems to hold true. An exception is that this strengthening is not felt if the note the follows the potential syncopation is the same length of note (or shorter). In this case, I don't think that the note can be thought of as syncopated.

For example:

In the below, the note that's supporting the word "Stars" is usually felt as being stronger than if it occurred on beat 3.



The note with the word "Fly" on beat 2 in (2) below is usually felt as stronger than the note on beat 1 in (1). To my way of thinking, the second situation can be thought of as either a beat 1 note that has been syncopated by delaying it or a beat 3 note that has been syncopated by anticipating it.



The note before beat 2 below, with the word "want" on it, is not felt as overly stronger because the note that follows it is of the same length.




The below is assuming 4/4 time.

TWO
Words that are important from a primary meaning perspective (i.e. those words that identify or enhance the main parts of a sentence; verbs and nouns (mostly) and sometimes adjectives and adverbs), should be set musically so that their strong syllable occurs on a primary beat. In most instances, beats 1 or 3 should be the first consideration. If beats 2 and 4 are syncopated as above then placement of strong syllables on these beats can also work.

Words that are important from a grammatical perspective (i.e. prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc.) should occur on the weaker note beats. There are instances when these deserve a strong beat (i.e. beats 1 or 3 or a syncopated note). How a phrase is spoken in English will determine where the note placement occurs from a beat perspective.

I'll save my discussion about how note grouping affects rhythmic stresses for another post

All the best,
Noel

P.S. I'll post the above-indicated images within the next day or so.

Wow.... thank you, Noel. That is such a wonderful overview of lyrics and word classes and their relationship to placement and beats.

Being a neighbor, Jimmy Webb stops by for coffee often and I'll look at the clock are realize it was a dream and I'm late for work...

I'm a Pat Pattison fan, also, and have several of his books. He has some lengthy videos on YouTube, but it's too much for me to absorb, best for me to read about the fundamentals like your breakdown, before my mind wanders off.

As you all know, Jimmy Webb wrote a great book, Tunesmith, that is fascinating. You probably got into his chapters about the technical side of music, but I'm music illiterate, and I liked his stories and explanations of how pop songs need X, but Broadway songs needed Y.

Thanks again, Noel. Great stuff!

If you are trying to work out stresses in speech, a linguist friend showed me a great trick. As you read your lyrics, use 'uh' or 'um'. I use it when training my Chinese students in poetry. You can here the major and minor stresses very easily.

Mary had a little lamb
Mm m(M) m Mm M

Bold = main stress
M = minor stress.

There are regional variations (and I'm English)

Another quick trick is to see what words are needed to make sense
Mary had little lamb.

The dog is big
m M m M
dog big.

Hi lambada,

That's a great idea! I've never thought of anything like that. I'll give it a try next time I deconstruct something. Thanks for the idea!

Regards,
Noel