MUSIC IN THE SPOKEN WORD (2025-7)

I was texting back and forth with friends who serve with me in the Primary organization of our local LDS congregation. We work with kids up to 11 years old. Jacey, one of our dynamic music leaders, arranged for us to take the older kids to this week’s Sunday morning performance of Music and the Spoken Word featuring the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, formerly known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Texting is awesome, but tricky. I have a tendency to send texts without checking them first. The little critter hiding in my iPhone thinks it knows what I am saying even if I’m not saying it. Sometimes he’ll flip a word just before I send it even if I do check what I’ve written. I’ve found that my odds of getting things to come up more accurately increase if I speak my texts into the phone’s microphone rather than risking the use of my chubby klutzy fingers. The text I sent this morning interpreted my speech to say Music in the Spoken Word rather than Music and the Spoken Word.

The difference between those two teeny words “in” and “and” are pivotal. Analyzing it took my thoughts to my years of learning and teaching songwriting. One of the first messages I try to offer students is the basic understanding of the innate musicality of common speech. There is lilt to our voices when we speak. Most people don’t pause to think about it. But if you’re trying to write music to a lyric, the simplest and usually most effective way to find fitting melody is to speak the lyric and see where the voice takes you. Try writing a little tune to the phrase you speak. Your voice will rise and fall as you speak. It will hang on accented syllables longer. If you can make the music you write kind of match that melodic and rhythmic pattern, you’re often on the right track.

For instance, the other day I taught one of my guitar classes how to play Imagine, by John Lennon. Try speaking the opening sentence. Then try singing it. He has given the timing to the phrase, as it is spoken, completely to the music.  I’ll capitalize the words that carry extra weight in the conversation:

WHAT would you DO if I SANG out of TUNE, would you LAUGH and then WALK out on ME?

There is music in the words.

RAINdrops on ROSEs and WHISKer on KITtens. BRIGHT COPper KETtles and WARM WOOLen MITtens. Speak it, then see how well the music fits into the syllabic weight.

There is music in the words. 

If a musical phrase puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable it will sound unnatural and up goes a red flag of unbelievability. In critiquing songs there will inevitably be some song where the emphasis is on the wrong syllable... Sy-LAB-le...SYL-a-ble. 

Find the music in the speech, put it in the melody, and you’re on the right track.

So, there’s today’s lesson in songwriting. It’s not always the case, but it’s a pretty safe exercise to look for the music already inherently born in the lyric.

Indeed, there is music IN the spoken word.

(now somebody get the message to Artificial Intelligence.)