The original exercise from Linda Anderson and Derek Neale’s Writing Fiction is “You might like to try writing a haiku everyday. Activity 2.4. Spend half an hour now practising haiku. You might opt for traditional subjects (scenes in nature or seasonal changes or try to capture moments occurring in urban landscapes)” (Anderson 2009). My adaption is as follows:
For this method, I did no adapting; I just clarified the structure of the haiku. I purposefully left the method open-ended as I did not want to explain how to apply the haiku to music. Most obviously it could be used as lyrics for a song. One example can be found in the A sections of the jazz standard “Moonlight in Vermont.” The first A section lyrics are “Pennies in a stream,/ Falling leaves, a sycamore,/ Moonlight in Vermont” (Blackburn 1945).
In her book The Craft of Lyric Writing, Davis gives insight into how Karl Suessdorf and John Blackburn wrote the song.
Working from the title and writing from Karl Suessdorf’s melody, lyricist John Blackburn recalls the process of creativity: ‘After completing the first 12 bars of lyric, I realized there was no rhyme and then said to Karl, ‘Let’s follow the pattern of no rhyme scheme throughout the song’ (Davis 1989).
It is interesting to note that according to this retelling of the process, the melodic rhythm actually determined the lyric structure and therefore created the haikus. The haiku did not determine the melodic rhythm which may explain the even phrase length of six bar A sections and downbeat oriented melody. Although in this example there is a lyric in haiku form, the workflow for the method I am using is different, starting with writing a poem. Besides just lyric applications, there are many rhythmic and musical subject implications to be derived from this method.
Case study, “Spring Haiku Collection”
While adding the rhythm, harmony, and melody, I tried to frame the text that I had written. I did so with a bit of text painting. The word “waits” is a whole note tied to a dotted half note and the word “held” is a whole note. Additionally, the word “lifted” is an ascending 6th jump. Melodically it is very simple and pentatonic until the middle of the fourth bar which allows the lyrics to stand out more and mirrors the simplicity in the number of syllables.
The challenge for me was continuing this song because I was unsure of where to go. I tried writing more haikus and directly inputting these as more verses but, the text setting sounded awkward with the melody I had already written. When I attempted to harmonize it as a new section, I felt some sort of repetition was still missing within the song. Finally, I wrote another verse that not only had the haiku structure but also matched the rhythmic structure of the first haiku. This proved to be challenging but, eventually, I was able to come up with another verse that worked for me.
After that, I made another haiku that had a different rhythmic structure and harmonized this new haiku. Instead of going straight through the haiku for the B section, I repeated some lines. The first line repeats four times and the second line repeats twice. This helps to build motion and intensity in the bridge as well as changing the melodic rhythm.
Melody/Harmony: In this composition, there is balance between the two main contrasting sections. The first section has no repetition in the melody whereas the second section repeats the first one-bar melodic cell four times and the second two-bar melodic cell twice. The first section also has a faster harmonic rhythm of one or two chords per bar while the second section has one chord per four bars for the first eight measures. The melodic palate also has balance as the melody is derived from the Ab major pentatonic scale, but there is variation when it ventures outside of this scale for the ends of phrases. Additionally, there is balance in the contrary motion of harmony and melody. Measure three has an ascending melody with a descending bassline in the harmony while the pickup to measure six descends and the bassline in the harmony ascends.
Form: The odd bar phrases (9, 7, and 13) all support the lyrics which are paired with the melody.
Performance: This composition is enjoyable to perform because it instills a sense of calm.
Thoughts from my reflective journal: “After trying this method for 2 days… I think this method has potential to create unusual phrasings/phrase lengths because of the structure of the haiku.”
“Something about the haiku method that makes it especially challenging is if you need multiple verses to fit the same rhythmic structure. Just because there is a standardized rule for the number of syllables doesn’t mean that the rests/places that are held will make sense. I tried inserting another haiku as a ‘second verse’ of sorts and the emphasis was very unnatural. Thus, I needed to write another haiku that followed the rules AND the same structure as the previous to fit within the song.”
“An unexpected outcome of this method so far is that I think it doesn’t sound like a haiku. The listener may not even notice the structure without it being pointed out. Because rhythm can change how the words sound so much, I think it obscures the pattern.”
Composition Workbook Results: Composer 9 found the “up to 30-minute” time limit to be a bit intimidating. This could be adapted to something like “for at least ten minutes” which might be more approachable. Composer 4 took a different approach and ended up writing a song with a 6, 7, 6 syllable pattern instead. Composer 3 noted that this method specifically changed their workflow leading to a different compositional result (similar to my experience). They recounted,
A lot of times I will write a musical idea that I like, and then, if I want lyrics on it, I'll try to impose, you know, some sort of idea onto the thing that's already there and so I did the haiku not planning on writing music to it. I just wanted to write the words.
Continuing that, “allowing” themselves the “permission to start” made it so they “didn't have the expectation of ‘it has to fit into this musical setting.’” Concluding, “Oddly enough, a musical setting sprouted from the words that I had had, which I thought was really cool. Something that I'm definitely very, not used to.” They ordinarily wrote the melody and harmony first but this encouraged them to write the lyrics first. Composer 1 appreciated that this method allowed them to experiment with lyrics and the message of the song because each line was so short. They summarized their thoughts during the process by saying:
How can I take what I'm trying to say, even if it didn't turn it out to be a good haiku, and try and fit it into this amount of time? And still make it not sound like I'm trying to fit it into this amount of syllables? So I liked the structure of this kind of writing because that's something I think about a lot, and that I find myself getting trapped in and just having permission to just try to get it to the exact 5, 7, 5. It was helpful, because it made me just write everything until one of them was okay and then I put it in.
Composer 5 said about the method, “the haiku one was really great too because sometimes when I'm writing lyrics I tend to just write a lot of stuff and then it’s sort of hard to narrow it down and pick which things actually belong in the song and which things don't so, it was nice to have already a format.” Composer 10 noted that they were inspired by simple melodic songs while composing the music for their haiku. This was also similar to my experience.
Results:
This method created a different workflow for me than usual. Typically, I write melody, lyrics, and harmony at the same time or at least melody and lyrics together. For this exercise, one writes the haiku (which for me became the lyrics) to start. Although it is not required, I wrote the haiku separately and then added the other elements. Because I wrote the lyrics first and then added harmony and melody, it resulted in uneven phrase lengths (a nine-bar A section, a seven-bar B section, and a thirteen-bar C section) and a unique melodic rhythm while still serving the lyrics. The content of the lyrics also gave direction in terms of harmony and melody. To me, they are calm and have a sense of anticipation. I kept the melody mostly pentatonic and built a sense of anticipation by having triads and chords in various inversions and over different bass notes.
Overall, this method can promote deeper reflection on the formation of lyrics and the setting of these lyrics with melody and harmony. Depending on one’s typical workflow, it could encourage a different process and order for lyrics, harmony, and melody. In the future, I will consider the timing element of the exercise and how the wording can be adapted to be more approachable.
