(Here's the beginning of all this)
In response to this post, Tim said:
Re post 5 (and this is ironically an instance of the importance of prosody), the problem comes not when someone says "these are the RULES of language", it comes when someone says "these are THE rules of language"... Like I said, all lyrics ...are the outcome of a subtle interplay of lots of different and potentially contradictory rules. You're saying "it's fine to break THE rules, but you have to know you're breaking THE rules", to which I say, there are many rules, all of which have some sort of objective basis, and you'll always be breaking or bending some of them, and you'll always be working in ignorance of others, no matter what sort of craft practises you use. In fact, the combination of rules they know and apply and the degree of strictness is arguably the whole of what defines a writer's voice!
I say "degree of strictness" because all setting of words in songs compromises natural scansion to some degree, unless it is literally a transcription of the exact scansion of a natural speaking voice.
So I don't think you can take one or two rules, like the ones about scansion and prosody and say that anything that doesn't observe those specific rules to the degree which you find acceptable and then claim as a result that the work isn't communicating. You can say it isn't communicating to you, but of course, you *did* understand what they were trying to say in the Patchacouli song.
If you want to make a more general claim, that it isn't communicating to the audience at large, then you need good evidence, like demonstrating a significant proportion of the audience didn't understand the song, for instance.
My reply:
Tim said: … these are the RULES of language … these are THE rules of language...
As I said in my last post to Michael: it might help if we get off the idea of rules. I think you just have a bad reaction to anything involving the word 'rules'.
Let's forget that all lyric-writing exists. Then, let us have the idea that we could put words and music together. Now let us find ways to help us do that within storytelling and more efficiently and smoothly get the story across to the audience.
To do that, we would look at how the audience listens.
Prosody and scansion are not rules. They are things that happen in the use of language. They're not THE rules, or the RULES, or any other thing that has been implanted into language. They ARE language. They are the atoms of linguistic molecules.
Tim said: Like I said, all lyrics ...are the outcome of a subtle interplay of lots of different and potentially contradictory rules… there are many rules, all of which have some sort of objective basis…
And as I keep saying, scansion and prosody are global. If you are using language, you cannot do without them because they ARE language, just as water cannot do without the O or an H.
(I absolutely know I am going to regret choosing that metaphor, because you are so much smarter than me that I will find myself poisoned by my own chemical metaphoria.)
Jokes, you can write without. Rhyme can go, too. You can lose any of the other things that you might call 'rules' and still write something that will clearly communicate story to audience. You can make choices about whether to include them or not, and how to include them.
What you cannot do is leave out scansion and prosody. If you ignore them, they're still there, only they might work against you because you've ignored them.
If you know they're there and they're working against you, and you decide to leave it anyway just because why should you bother with stupid rules? - then you're not making a creative choice, you're making a point. To other writers? Or maybe to the people you think the rules have come from? I don't know to whom, but certainly not to the audience, and it's the audience with whom you're trying to communicate.
Tim said: In fact, the combination of rules they know and apply and the degree of strictness is arguably the whole of what defines a writer's voice!
Not the only thing, but certainly a large part of it, yes. However, the more you know and understand about the way an audience receives a story in this storytelling form, the more power you have to make use of those things in communicating with the audience. And since prosody and scansion are the atoms of linguistic molecules (Quick, nurse, the antidote!) if you are aware of them, it seems an odd creative choice to ignore them and let them get in the way of communication.
Even if the way in which they get is a small one. I never said the song wasn't communicating. It's just not communicating as well as it could. Which is fine if there is a creative and intentional purpose in there somewhere. I don't see a creative sort of purpose in that instance.
Do you?
Tim said: I say "degree of strictness" because all setting of words in songs compromises natural scansion to some degree, unless it is literally a transcription of the exact scansion of a natural speaking voice.
True. But at least it has attention paid to it. Since it is always there anyway, I think paying it creative attention is better than trying to ignore it.
Tim said: So I don't think you can take one or two rules, like the ones about scansion and prosody and say that anything that doesn't observe those specific rules to the degree which you find acceptable and then claim as a result that the work isn't communicating.
Any observance is acceptable. Ignoring is also acceptable, clearly, since it's the writer's choice what to do, and how to do it. I never said anything about there being an official Rulebook or a Judge. I think ignoring something that is always there is a shame, because the writing could reach the audience more efficiently if scansion and prosody were used.
I try to make writers aware of them, so the writers can choose to use them. Or not. I still don't understand why a writer would choose to ignore something just for the sake of… ignoring it.
Tim said: If you want to make a more general claim, that it isn't communicating to the audience at large, then you need good evidence, like demonstrating a significant proportion of the audience didn't understand the song, for instance.
My general claim is that you cannot get rid of prosody or scansion. You can't choose to have them suddenly not be a part of language. You can with humour, and rhyme, and all manner of other things in lyric writing, but not scansion or prosody. I don't think I need to offer you proof in order for you to agree with that. I'm not sure why I would need to offer you proof that making deliberate creative choices is better than not making them. As you say, our creative choices make our creative voices.
So what is the intentional creative purpose behind the unnatural scansion and prosody in that song?
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