Have you ever listened to a song and wondered what the heck the singer was saying? That's definitively an issue you want to avoid when crafting your own music.
And there are things you can do to minimize that problem from occurring.
A Background on Stresses in Words and Music In the spoken word, some syllables are accented, and others aren't.
For example, look at the word "station.
" It's a word we've heard a lot, so we're very familiar with its sonic shape.
If you listen carefully, you'll notice the syllable "STA-" is stressed more than the syllable "-tion.
" I'll notate this by capitalizing the stressed syllable: STA-tion.
Say it out loud.
Do you hear it? The stress on the first syllable helps to create its natural shape, as we know it.
If we stressed the second syllable, which shouldn't be stressed, we'd get: sta-TION.
Say that out loud.
Sounds weird, doesn't it? It's not how we're used to hearing that word.
So what does that have to do with music? Well, when we sing words, we're still accenting certain syllables, but in music the position of the syllables in the measure dictates which syllables get accented, and which syllables don't.
Each measure of a song has certain beats that are stronger than other beats in that same measure.
For example, in common time the first beat of the measure is the strongest, while the third beat is the next strongest.
After that, the second beat is the third strongest while the fourth beat of each measure is the weakest.
There are even further breakdowns from there, but without getting too technical about it, we just need to know that the first and third beats of the measure are the strongest.
So, if we put a syllable on the first or third beat of a measure, it'll sound more accented than a beat that's on the second, or last beat.
Aligning the Stresses of a Word with the Stresses in Music As songwriters, part of our job is to align the accents in our words with the accents in our music.
Singing is an exaggerated form of speech, so in order for our words to resonate with our listeners and sound natural, we need the phrases we sing to have the same sonic shape as the spoken version of our words.
A lot times when we mishear what a singer is saying, it's because the accent of the word within the music doesn't align with how the word is accented when it's spoken.
Let's look at a couple of examples of songs that didn't align the musical stresses with the stresses in the word, and see how they affect how we hear the lyric.
Examples Sticking with our example in the word "station" that we looked at above, let's first look at the song "Telephone" by Lady Gaga, featuring Beyonce.
When Beyonce sings the line "Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station," The "-tion" syllable of the word "station" falls on the third beat of the measure.
As we saw earlier, the third beat of a measure is a pretty strong stress, musically.
It's second only to the first beat of a measure, so if you put a syllable there it's going to sound stressed.
It's not exactly where we'd want the unstressed syllable "-tion" from the word "station" to land, but it does in the song "Telephone.
" You can hear what it sounds like about halfway through the song.
Count along with the beats if you can.
Did you hear how the word "station" sounded unnatural when Beyonce sang it? Now you know why.
The "-tion" was accented because it fell on the third beat.
Another example of this happens in the Katy Perry song "The One that Got Away.
" Listen for the line "And on my eighteenth birthday, we got matching tattoos" at the very beginning of the song.
Did you notice any words sounding unnatural in that line? If you said the word "matching," you got it.
The "-ing" syllable falls on the third beat of the measure, while the "match-" syllable falls on the second beat of the measure.
The third beat is stronger than the second, so we hear the word as "match-ING" instead of "MATCH-ing" as we would normally hear it in every day speech.
In both of these examples, we saw an unstressed syllable land on the third beat of a measure.
The first beat of a measure is even stronger than the third, so had those syllables fallen on the downbeat, the same problem would have occurred.
You may not think it's too big of a deal, but when things like that happen, it takes away from the lyric.
When you hear that, you may ask yourself "what did she just say," or "hey, she said that weirdly.
" Then while you're thinking that, the next two lines already happened and you missed them.
However, if they sound natural, you can enjoy the lyric for what it is.
In those examples we saw what happens when you put an unstressed syllable on a stressed musical beat.
Conversely, a lot of times if you try to put a syllable that should be stressed on a less stressed musical beat, it will tend to sound rushed and you'll barely hear the word in the song.
This is another common reason lyrics can be misheard.
Last Note Ultimately your phrases should sound as natural as they do in speech.
You don't have to break down your songs as thoroughly as I've done here, but keep an open ear as you write and listen for these situations, so you can avoid them when possible.
You want to give your listener the best chance of staying engaged with your words and avoiding situations like these will provide that opportunity.