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Simple Song - About the Text


When setting poetry to music, read the poem aloud and note the strong words. Depending on the time the work was written and the style of poem, a natural pulse can often arise. Note the number of syllables per line and possible musical moments such as cadence points, important words or punctuation.


Accented words and syllables will tend to written on strong beats.Think of when you used protonotation to indicate pulse. The more emphasis that occurs metrically should attract the stressed words and syllables.


Metric Accent 1




Metric Accent 2





Example poem-          


aThis line is written with ten syllables,            

bAnother can follow to couple it.       

cA new phrase, parallel or contrasting,       

dPaired with a final that’s authentic.               


Analyze every word for stress. Use a dictionary. Read it out loud. Listen...


aThis line is writ-ten with ten syl-la-bles,

bAn-oth-er can fol-low to cou-ple it.

cA new phrase, par-al-lel or con-trast-ing,

dPaired with a fi-nal that’s au-then-tic.



Possible cadence patterns-  ONLY chose from the four (#1-#4)suggested patterns listed below. The number beside each of the cadences corresponds with the same line in the poem. It should be obvious that each poem will be set so that the fourth line will end with a PAC.


Two periods.

  #1 #2

aHalfaAC

bPACbHalf

cHalfcIAC

dPACdPAC


Double Periods

#3 #4

aHalfaAC

bIACbHalf

cHalfcAC

dPACdPAC