Thursday, July 6, 2017

Rhythm, Poetry, and Music

            Rhythm is a repeating pattern of sound. We hear rhythm everywhere—from the crashing waves of the ocean, to the hypnotic sound of a train, to the speech we hear in our daily lives. Rhythm is part of nature. Summer rises and leads to fall. Fall leads to winter, and then spring arrives. The sun rises and sets. We wake up; we go to sleep. Rhythm is so engrained into our spirits, minds, and experience, that we often don’t stop to think about it.
            Rhythm is found in nature, but it is also learned. As we learn to speak, we naturally learn rhythm. Take some time to listen to someone that doesn’t speak English as a native language. Even if every vowel and consonant resonates with perfect pronunciation, they still may be difficult to understand. Why? They have pronunciation, but they don’t have a rhythm our ear is accustomed to. Our native tongue shapes our experience and conditions us to be drawn to certain rhythmic patterns. When those patterns are missing, we find things jarring, and it requires extra effort to extrapolate meaning.
            In English certain syllables are given more or less emphasis. We generally have three variations in emphasis: loud, which is a stressed syllable; medium, which is a semi-stressed syllable; and soft, which is an unstressed syllable. Let’s consider the word, “harmony”. It is generally said:
            HAR         mon         ee
Obviously, the emphasis is being exaggerated, but when the emPHASis is on the wrong sylLABle things sound a bit wonky. We've grown used to a rhythmic pattern for familiar words, and when someone doesn't follow that pattern, we find the sound cacophonous.
            Let's consider a pattern of rhythm for a moment:
            DUM         cha         dum         cha
Say it! Yes, I'm serious! Now, take it and repeat it in a cycle:
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
This rhythmic cycle is the most common pattern of rhythm found in Western music. No doubt other cultures may produce different rhythm patterns. Ever eat at a Chinese restaurant? At my local Chinese establishment (with its addicting beef lo mein), when the lady takes your order, she then barks it back to the kitchen staff in Chinese. You can hear all the cooks barking back and forth in a speech that sounds foreign and jarring to my tender American ears. Why does it sound so jarring? Because the rhythm isn't what I'm used to! Can you recognize music that comes from the Orient? It has a certain sound, doesn't it? Part of this is the rhythm.
            Ever wonder why someone sounds a little pompous when they never use contractions and always use "he or she" instead of the ubiquitous "they"? It's because they are grammatically correct, but rhythmically challenged. It ain't right, but sometimes grammar and rhythm collide. "It ain't" has a different rhythm then "it is not", and often the "ain't" paints a better melody. Contractions also change the rhythm of a sentence, because they shorten things one syllable. One syllable doesn't sound like much, but consider:
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
            DUM     cha  cha        dum         cha         DUM         cha          dum        cha
            DUM         cha         dum         cha         DUM         cha         dum         cha
Oh, that hideous third line of rhythm!
            Do you happen to have a friend that likes to curse, and is also funny? You can be honest and tell me the truth. I'm only a blog, so I won't tell anyone:) Part of you may be thinking, "He shouldn't be saying those frickin-frackin words, that son of a blizzard!" Yet, part of you finds his colorful metaphors (with all those bleeping words and even his grammatically deficient sentence structures) not only appealing, but raucously hilarious! Why?
            Consider cursing for a moment. It's okay, I won't tell your mother. Cursing often involves short words or phrases that are rhythmic in nature. "The man who had sexual relations with my maternal parent" isn't as rhythmic as that, "MOTHER F, . . ." Well, you can fill in the rest! If you consider cursing from the standpoint of rhythm, curse words and phrases are a rhythmic Lego set that easily allows one to construct rhythmically powerful language.
            When building rhythm, it's often easier to use short, concrete words as opposed to long, abstract words. How often do you hear the word "exponentially" in a song? In Western music, the most common rhythm patterns are based on two, three, and four "syllables". Okay, "syllables" isn't the correct technical term, but for the moment we're looking at the similarity between music and language. In many ways, the beat of music is similar to the syllables of speech.
            There is a rhythm to speech we find appealing. That rhythm is similar to rhythm we tap our feet to or enjoy when we hear Dr. Suess. Rhythm is a foundational element to music, writing, and poetry. If you want success in those disciplines, you need to get your groove on. Rhythm is also the point where the three intersect. Song lyrics can be viewed as poetry that is voiced with an emphasis on changing pitch. Poetry is a song without strong emphasis on changing pitch. Music can be written without lyrics, but even without lyrics, there are certain patterns of rhythm our ears find appealing. Many of those patterns come from the way we speak our language.


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