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Post by Octagon on Sept 23, 2021 6:20:14 GMT -6
When we read good prose, we hear in our minds a certain rhythm, which is like, as it seems, that of music. But how much resemblance does the rhythm of prose bear to rhythm of music? And can training in music aid with the writing of prose, even if the training be in drumming only?
Thank you in advance for all your answers.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Sept 23, 2021 11:11:35 GMT -6
When we read good prose, we hear in our minds a certain rhythm, which is like, as it seems, that of music. But how much resemblance does the rhythm of prose bear to rhythm of music? And can training in music aid with the writing of prose, even if the training be in drumming only? Thank you in advance for all your answers. Hmm, I can see this being useful if one is writing performance poetry like Slam, or metered poetry like sonnets. While I do like a rhythm to my prose (when appropriate), I've not had any musical training, except for a couple years of piano when I was nine or ten. So I'm not sure if that had any bearing on my personal preference in writing. I doubt it. Not helpful, sorry. I bet our members who are also musicians will be able to contribute more useful replies. Bird Caulder Melhaire Bootzilla @others I'm surely missing. |
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Post by Caulder Melhaire on Sept 23, 2021 14:49:54 GMT -6
This is weirdly something I've become more conscious of in the last year or so. I can't speak to the pure musical theory part of things (yes, I fully passed my piano course by muscle memory alone. Who has time to learn what all those black dots mean? Certainly not I  ) I've always held writing and music side by side, as long as I've been at it. But lately I've begun incorporating into my writing as opposed to just... having it playing the background. Like my Rise From Ruin entry was driven by a heavy metal In This Moment song. But reading through it, it doesn't feel particularly metal, and it doesn't necessarily fit very well if you listen to the song while you read it. I certainly don't get that sense of loud brutality from it, at least. And it's because I'm not writing it to mirror the song, but rather to imitate the way that the lyrics ebb and flow, and the way that the melody moves me; the desperation of the vocals in stark contrast to the painfully apathetic beat. When you read it that way - in the sense of how that song vibrated with me - then yeah, it actually does sync up pretty well. One of my favorite poems, I wrote in the style of Japanese music, specifically the gorgeous way their lyrics often read when roughly translated to English. I guess for me it's like... writing a piece of sheet music except instead of notes you're pegging emotions, reactions, sensations, and then singing the words of your story to that melody. THe lyrics read one thing, but they're ultimately inhibited (or maybe guided is a better word) by the melody. Come to think of it, my first, horrible, burn-it-and-salt-the-ashes story I ever wrote was inspired by an Evanescence song. I should add this only works for short pieces LOL. I've been brainstorming how to incorporate this style into my novel, but I think at that level, having one or even two songs kind of falls apart. You'd need to compile a massive playlist; a symphony of elicited emotion to carry you through the entirety of the play. Like even for my short novel project, I have a particular song for each act, but it gets harder to maintain the sound as each act breaks into smaller chapters. ...did any of that make sense? Haha! It's hard to put it into words.  |
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Post by Octagon on Sept 24, 2021 18:09:28 GMT -6
Thank you for your answer.
I understand this: that a knowledge of music is not at all necessary for writing rhythmical prose, but a knowledge of the function of our language, which is stressed-timed, segmented, and syntactically flexible, a quality which renders it possible for us to write every thought of ours in beautifully rhythmical prose. And practice is also necessary.
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Post by ScintillaMyntan on Sept 26, 2021 12:22:27 GMT -6
Thank you for your answer. I understand this: that a knowledge of music is not at all necessary for writing rhythmical prose, but a knowledge of the function of our language, which is stressed-timed, segmented, and syntactically flexible, a quality which renders it possible for us to write every thought of ours in beautifully rhythmical prose. And practice is also necessary. It's interesting that you bring up stress timing. I don't know about prose; I've not thought much about the need for rhythm in prose. But I have recently been trying to come up with some lines that I can repeat in my head to support my sense of well-being. The first three I came up with were too hard to remember, not catchy enough to form a 'chant' in my mind.
A well-known mantra that originates in Buddhism is this:
I find that one catchy because of the repetitions. I realized that if I wanted my own, made-up mantra to be catchy, it needs repetition or rhythm. The three ideas I want to convey to myself don't have much room for repetition, nor are they easy to state in the same number of syllables. I ended up rewriting them to have three stressed syllables per line, with the stresses in each line in roughly the same places: the second syllable, somewhere in the middle, and the ultimate syllable. Like you said, because of the nature of English, it was easy to get it to work out. It's easy enough to put the same number of syllables in each line, and our language naturally makes them sound musical because of the way we space them apart in speech.
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Post by Octagon on Sept 27, 2021 18:50:56 GMT -6
Thank you for your answer. I understand this: that a knowledge of music is not at all necessary for writing rhythmical prose, but a knowledge of the function of our language, which is stressed-timed, segmented, and syntactically flexible, a quality which renders it possible for us to write every thought of ours in beautifully rhythmical prose. And practice is also necessary. It's interesting that you bring up stress timing. I don't know about prose; I've not thought much about the need for rhythm in prose. But I have recently been trying to come up with some lines that I can repeat in my head to support my sense of well-being. The first three I came up with were too hard to remember, not catchy enough to form a 'chant' in my mind.
A well-known mantra that originates in Buddhism is this:
I find that one catchy because of the repetitions. I realized that if I wanted my own, made-up mantra to be catchy, it needs repetition or rhythm. The three ideas I want to convey to myself don't have much room for repetition, nor are they easy to state in the same number of syllables. I ended up rewriting them to have three stressed syllables per line, with the stresses in each line in roughly the same places: the second syllable, somewhere in the middle, and the ultimate syllable. Like you said, because of the nature of English, it was easy to get it to work out. It's easy enough to put the same number of syllables in each line, and our language naturally makes them sound musical because of the way we space them apart in speech.
The rhythm of a passage is not necessarily something that one would recognize as rhythm, but something that gives it a certain voice. The better the rhythm, the more flowing the passage is, and the better the quality of the voice. Here are some verses from the KJV Bible, the book I reckon the Word of God, according to my faith as a Christian. John 3:16 Romans 3 I'm not trying to proselytize. I'm just sharing the scriptures as an example of a book having rhythm, along with the faith that is preached in the book. It's up to everyone else if they want to accept or reject it, or hear more about it. I do not want to insult anyone's religion; I just want to say that I believe them to be false. |
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Post by RAVENEYE on Sept 28, 2021 10:27:03 GMT -6
Right. Well, while we're not going to embark on a discussion about faith in this thread (there is a forum for that), I do agree that translators of scripture often likely chose their word selection for a certain amount of poetry and rhythm. The better to memorize verses. This does cause me to wonder how much of this is the case in the original languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, whether the writers were concerned with things like rhythm. David, probably yes. Paul, probably less so. Given the different purposes of each of their writings.
Though the power of scripture lies more in the layers of meaning, the word play, the comes in when the original languages are taken into consideration. Much of which is lost in our English translations.
But that's another whole topic.
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Post by Octagon on Sept 28, 2021 17:07:50 GMT -6
Right. Well, while we're not going to embark on a discussion about faith in this thread (there is a forum for that), I do agree that translators of scripture often likely chose their word selection for a certain amount of poetry and rhythm. The better to memorize verses. This does cause me to wonder how much of this is the case in the original languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, whether the writers were concerned with things like rhythm. David, probably yes. Paul, probably less so. Given the different purposes of each of their writings. Though the power of scripture lies more in the layers of meaning, the word play, the comes in when the original languages are taken into consideration. Much of which is lost in our English translations. But that's another whole topic. Okay. At some point in the future, I'll probably post a thread about the Gospel in the General Discussion forum. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by layers of meaning? |
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Post by Octagon on Oct 2, 2021 7:35:12 GMT -6
Do you think that, between grammatical phrases in a sentence, we pronounce tiny pauses, dividing the rhythm of a sentence into the stress-pattern between these pauses, or do you think that, the rhythm of a sentence is merely a matter of punctuation and scansion into feet.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Oct 2, 2021 9:39:09 GMT -6
Right. Well, while we're not going to embark on a discussion about faith in this thread (there is a forum for that), I do agree that translators of scripture often likely chose their word selection for a certain amount of poetry and rhythm. The better to memorize verses. This does cause me to wonder how much of this is the case in the original languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, whether the writers were concerned with things like rhythm. David, probably yes. Paul, probably less so. Given the different purposes of each of their writings. Though the power of scripture lies more in the layers of meaning, the word play, the comes in when the original languages are taken into consideration. Much of which is lost in our English translations. But that's another whole topic. Okay. At some point in the future, I'll probably post a thread about the Gospel in the General Discussion forum. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by layers of meaning? About layers of meaning, I refer to the fact that where our English translation uses a single very specific word with limited meaning, many of the original words in Greek and Hebrew have multiple, richer meanings. For instance: In Isaiah 7:14 - "Therefore the Lord himself will give you[c] a sign: The virgin[d] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[e] will call him Immanuel," the word "sign" ('owth in Hebrew) means not just "sign" but also "signal, distinguishing mark, banner, remembrance, omen, warning, token, miracle, proof." All of that being tied up into the single, limited translation we know as "sign." As for posting about the Gospel in the General Discussion forum, this goes against our policy, and all posts on religion, politics, and other incendiary topics will be moved to the Arena forum where they may be discussed in full. If you want the password for the Arena, send me a private message, and I will give it to you. |
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Post by pelwrath on Oct 5, 2021 8:50:19 GMT -6
Things common in music and prose, good question. Flow, music,prose and peotry all have it. Flow makes prose and poetry easy to read and music easy to listen to. time/beat changes can jar us out of a relaxed state, like an unexpected POV shift.
Music is also a mandatory part of any movie, it helps set the stage, increase intensity orlighten the mood. Those all might be why I many times have music on in the background when I write.
Think of the poem at the end of Night's in White Satin, fluttery, airy, dream music with a great tenor narration. Perfect ending to a great song.
The use of "Immigrant Song" in the finnal battle scnene for Thor: Ragnarock. Would've been a good scene without it but a much better one with it.
I'm a pantser, once I get past my initial stry board outlines, so a song can help me write a scene, even a TV theme song. The one I recently finished I had the Get Smart theme in my mind a few times. Oh, and not to brag but I didn't miss it by that much.
You're right, many the bible's books do have a good flow, and translation into and or out of Hebrew did affect word choice and use. Just like a shamen's chant or drums,pipes,or a stringed instrument being used during a story by a bard.
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Post by abigalekinkel on Jan 7, 2022 7:57:22 GMT -6
I'm sure learning music helps in writing prose. First of all, because, as you said, in prose we hear a certain rhythm, as in music. And secondly, because music can give you a certain mood for writing prose. This can be either positive or negative. The main thing is that you get inspiration. To make it easier for you to understand, you can make an analogy with some hotel or nightclub. So I was in the bar yesterday, and there seemed to be no entertainment in it, but due to the fact that there was a wonderful atmosphere thanks to the music and company, I did not want to leave there. Therefore, one thing can help the other one.
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Post by Octagon on Jul 28, 2022 0:47:07 GMT -6
I think that, according to what I read in a book on writing style, the syntactic patterns of phrases and their order in a sentence create rhythm. It is possible that tiny junctures exist between phrases when pronounced.
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Post by Octagon on Jul 28, 2022 1:20:32 GMT -6
Actually. I'm not sure whether to use scansion or phrasing. Is there anyone here familiar with scansion with whom I can speak?
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Post by Bird on Aug 15, 2022 20:00:18 GMT -6
When we read good prose, we hear in our minds a certain rhythm, which is like, as it seems, that of music. But how much resemblance does the rhythm of prose bear to rhythm of music? And can training in music aid with the writing of prose, even if the training be in drumming only? Thank you in advance for all your answers. All words have a rhythm. In Linguistics, the rhythm can be altered with an accent or adjustment in tone (for languages that use tone instead of accents to denote a preferred syllable). Also, all words can be divided into syllables - smaller phonemes, so when said out loud, these syllables establish a unique beat to that particular word. In some languages, like Japanese for instance, there are words, when written, that have the same phonemes, but because the tone of each syllable is different, the two words - written alike - sound very different when said out loud. The word's internal rhythm was changed.
I've found that my training in music helps me locate the beat within a sentence, paragraph, or poetic line. This is also why reading outloud is suggested so often to writers. When we read out loud, we are locating where in the sentence that our tongue slips up and trips. That is where the beat was lost, the word used there doesn't function right in the musical landscape of that sentence. So then we switch out that word for a different one. The flow resumes, and that flow is the musical cadence of that sentence.
I think about this a lot, but for others who are not musically inclined, they would know this phenomenon as "flow."
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) I've always held writing and music side by side, as long as I've been at it. But lately I've begun incorporating into my writing as opposed to just... having it playing the background. 
You add them to your profile as you do them around the forum.
