How To Write A Christian Song

First to write a ballade, or sonnet a traditional 14 line poem, you can write it like
Petrarch, who wrote an octave, that is two qautrains (4 lines each ) for his thesis a total of 8, and then another (6 lines being, 2 tercets of 3 lines of verse)  for his sestet, as his proposition or concluding thought or opinion with two tercets.

You can write a Spenserian sonnet with 7 couplets as your verses.

You can write a Terza Rima like Dante, with 4 -3 line tercets for twelve plus another two lines of verse for a total of 14 with and 1- 2 line couplet.

You can try writing like Chaucer, with 4 tercets, 3 lines of verse each and 1 couplet, to make a total of 14 lines for your sonnet / ballade.

You can write a sonnet like Shakespeare with 3 qautrains with 4 verses each and 1 couplet with two verses.

It does not matter how you write it, the modern pop songs have 3 verses and two choruses.

So write either 3 quatrains for twelve verses rhyming every other line.

Use and AB, AB rhyme scheme and then for the hook, your chorus write a 2 line couplet as your chorus. That makes a sonnet of 14 verses or lines.

You can repeat the chorus, as many times as you like in your song.

To start, think of a concept, what you want to write about, that is your over all theme.

Brainstorm through stream of consciousness as many ideas as you can, jot them down in point form quickly.

Then organize words that you want to use to make a key point, elaborate on that idea, write a paragraph about it. 4 lines, try to rhyme the end syllable of every other line.

A
B
A
B

Use that pattern.

Then write two more.

Think of an over all statement that sums up the theme and the concept in your verses.

That will be your Premise.

The Hook.

The Chorus. It is your 2 line couplet!

Now you are done with the poem, here is how to mark the scansions for meter and for prosody to find the melody of your music.


Scansions, when they are musical notation, and metric, measures, are bars in music, Ams, 4 beats or notes, and the phonemes, syllables, one per beat, in either, 1/4 or 2/8 or 4/16 depending on the cantillation of the prosody in the vowels, both the primary and the secondary, each being stressed according to it's type of syntax in grammar, nouns, having initial stress at the front, and verbs having the end, or usual (but not always penultimate stress), then the scansion should reflect actual real scansion and musical notation.

The syllables, one phoneme per beat or note, having either 1 quater note for (L) light weight vowels or (H) for heavy weight vowels 2 quarter notes or 3 quarter notes for superheavy vowels, it is rare to have 4 notes for a vowel but is possible.

That is one way, to mark the prosody, with Longue being 4 notes = 1 Am / Bar and Breve Short being 2 is another way to mark the scansion , like the medieval music notation for chants.

Another way to mark prosody it to specifically keep the phones /phonemes marked as on per syllable and one per note or beat in the 4/4 time/ tempo of an Am /Bar/ measure of music.

To mark the exact prosody, and to write music , then mark the cantillation for each vowel, with it's prosody being dynamic (S) Fortis Strong and (L) or (W) Lax, for Lenis or Weak dynamic based on the voiced or unvoiced consonants or vowels in the prior note/ syllable. Being marked F LOUD and P for Soft or quiet, and there is varying degree of 1 through 5 FFFF or MF or MP PPPP that is your dynamic, and it will indicate the phase or strength of frequency or colour degree of the clarity and resonance of the note when it is voiced, and the prosaic quality of the register/ pitch/ tonality the rise and fall, is the exact cantillation of the vowel enunciation, of melody and prosody with light syllables having one,ornament or figure and heavy having two notes and super heavy three with the mid being the highest point, starting at the lowest raising to mid then back to tonic or the previous note, it should be raised up if it is voiced, and lowered if unvoiced in the prior syllable or consonant.

So in that way, the note, a beat, the tone a 1/4 can be subdivided as each IPA International Phonetic Alphabet would suggest, as to how to enunciate the vowel, then subdivide the note each beat, one per syllable/ phoneme or segment of the etymology of the word, based on the onset, nucleus,and coda, the nucleus being the vowel usually, so divide it as 1/16 for light weight vowel, 2/16 ornament or figure for heavy, and for super heavy three ,so 3/16 notes, it is rare but possible to have 4/16 for heavier vowel combination.

In that way each cell, or note, has further division into figures as ornament for the vowel intonation cantillation per beat. If you prefer to make it like the chant music of middle ages, then use as breve 2 notes of the 4 in one Am, or Bar as counting as one scansion, and for heavy make a figure of 4 beats or notes, and super heavy 6 notes,  with short being Breve, and Longue being 4 notes, that is the other way, and then mark prosody of the vowels as motifs/ figures for the pattern of rime.

Choose words to fit on the next line that match its rime,  the syllable marking of scansion and prosody for the onset, and rime, being nucleus and coda.

That is the proper way to mark the scansions for music. Then the poem becomes a ballade or song! :)

~Krista Kaufman 2018-02-20