|
Intricacy
and Cleverness
Orson
Scott Card
One
of the temptations, in writing hymn texts, is to try too
hard to be clever.
It’s
easy to forget that the congregation is not singing the
hymn in order to admire the skill of the hymnist; they
are singing in order to worship the Lord, to remind themselves
of important truths, and — for those who love music —
for the sheer joy of raising their voices together.
Only
rarely are the words of a hymn so exceptional, in one
way or another, that we even care that the text had
an author or a composer. Hymns aren’t supposed to feel
to us like someone else’s words — they’re supposed to
feel to us, as we sing them, like the words of our own
hearts.
So
when the words become too clever or intricate in their
patterns, the text gradually shifts from being a hymn
to being something more appropriate for a choir to sing
— more to be listened to by the congregation than to be
sung.
This
doesn’t mean that the text is a failure — quite the contrary!
But it does mean that if you wish to write words for a
congregation to sing, you need to remember that simplicity
is more desirable than dazzling originality.
Besides,
originality that dazzles the writer is prone to be less
than dazzling to others — even those who do value cleverness
and intricacy!
Teaching
Lessons in Hymns
Here
is a hymn of mine in which I made some decisions that
may have made the text unusable:
“The
Word of Truth”
By
Orson Scott Card
Who
is wise?
The
one who sees the world through Jesus' eyes,
Who
loves the sinner but rejects the lies,
Who
knows desire fades, the body dies,
Yet
faith and love will live when we arise.
The word of truth is sweet and clear.
It guides the humble servant's hand.
And when the truth is hard to hear
The open heart will understand.
Who
is right?
The
one who loves the Lord with all his might,
With
all his mind and strength, and in whose sight
All
folk are neighbors, whom he will invite
To
shed their sins and dwell within the light.
The word of truth is sweet and clear.
It guides the humble servant's hand.
And when the truth is hard to hear
The open heart will understand.
The
purpose of “The Word of Truth” was to remember that knowing
the truth does not mean we should lose compassion for
those who don’t yet have the same understanding. In a
way, of course, the very writing of this hymn is the opposite
of what the hymn purports to be about: I, the hymnist,
am very sure that my understanding of tolerance is exactly
how you should understand it. The danger in such cases
of circularity is, of course, smugness.
Then,
to compound the potential for failure, I decided to use
a single rhyme for each of the two stanzas. This arose
by accident. The key choice was to begin each stanza
with a simple line consisting of three accented syllables.
This
is not a bad choice. It invites the composer to create
music that is surprising and unique.
But
those short first lines give unusual emphasis to their
end-words. Wise and right have tremendous
weight in their stanzas. And so, as I wrote the lines
that followed, I found myself searching for rhymes that
would continue to echo those strong openings.
The
result isn’t awful, but there are moments of awkwardness.
The word lies, for instance, is not an easy fit
with the line “Who loves the sinner but rejects the lies.”
What lies? Who is telling them? Is lying the only sin
being spoken of here? Or are all sinners assumed to be
liars?
I
know what I meant — that we should love the sinner, but
reject the lie that the sin is not a sin; in other words,
to be tolerant does not mean that we have to pretend that
there’s nothing wrong with sin. But the verse doesn’t
say that! It’s too compressed; in pursuit of rhyme, I
left a misinterpretable line.
That
isn’t to say that the hymn can’t be used as is. If, for
instance, you heard a choir sing this, the word lies
would pass quickly, and the ambiguity wouldn’t matter.
It’s when you are expected to sing the same words yourself,
again and again, year after year, that it’s essential
that the hymn be clear.
Perhaps
the lesson is that it’s very, very hard to “teach a lesson”
to the congregation in a hymn, and perhaps hymnwrights
should devote their efforts to creating hymns that the
whole congregation will immediately recognize as the thoughts
of their own hearts.
Or
perhaps the lesson is that when you decide to use a gimmick
— five identical rhymes in a row, for instance — you have
to be very careful not to lose the plain meaning of the
hymn.
At
least I had the sense to use easily-rhymed syllables like
“ize” and “ite,”
so the rhymes didn’t feel labored.
Hymns
with a Plan
The
next hymn isn’t trying to teach a lesson, and the “cleverness”
is not so obvious. But I still began it with a plan.
Each verse would be about a different holy place: The
meetinghouse, the temple, and our home.
“Holy
Places”
by
Orson Scott Card
In
this meetinghouse we sing,
Voices
raised to praise our King.
Here
we bow our heads to pray,
Help
each other find the way.
Make this house a holy place:
Let us spend our Sabbath day
In the Master's sweet embrace.
In
God's holy house we kneel
Joined
with his eternal seal.
Reaching
out beyond the grave,
Let
us share the gifts he gave,
Serving in this holy place
So our labors help to save
Those who will accept His grace.
In
the houses where we live,
Shelter,
strength, and joy we give.
At
our door let conflict end
As
each other's needs we tend.
Make our home a holy place
Where each sweet familiar friend
Gives a glimpse of Jesus' face.
The
original plan works well enough: Paralleling our homes,
the temple, and the meetinghouse is a good idea with some
strong emotional content. In the process, though, I got
caught up in a “clever” rhyme scheme.
The
verse seems simple enough: two rhyming couplets of exactly
equal length. But the simplicity disappears in the refrain.
The first and third lines of all three refrains rhyme
with “place.” This isn’t an inherently bad thing — after
all, the idea of a “holy place” is what the hymn is about.
Besides, since all the refrains are different, it is the
“place” rhymes that tie them together and separate them
from the verse.
It
doesn’t hurt a thing that the middle line of the refrain
also happens to rhyme with the second couplet of the verse
... does it?
Not
at all. The harm comes from the fact that the refrain
has only three lines, and none of them is easily repeatable
to make it come out as a four. That’s because the first
line of the refrain is the clincher — the last two lines
are merely an elaboration.
If
you repeat either of the last two lines, it gives it undue
weight and leads to awkwardness — they don’t stand alone,
and repeated lines need to make sense by themselves.
And
if you repeat the first line of the refrain, then the
word place starts to feel pounded. It’s such an
abstract, neutral word, that to repeat it three times
in the hymn is already pushing it; to make it six times
would approach ugliness.
It’s
possible that a very clever composer could find a way
to make a seven-line hymn work musically without repeating
any lines.
But
the simplest solution is simply to remove all the refrains.
To see what I mean, go back and read the three four-line
stanzas, but skip right over the three-line refrains.
It
works, doesn’t it? The hymn is immediately made simple,
plain, and rather sweet.
Yet
all my cleverness is wiped out in a stroke. The hymn
now follows one of the most common rhythm patterns in
the hymnbook. DA da DA
da DA
da DAH. The rhyming is in couplets.
What
do we miss, by deleting the refrains? Ultimately, not
a thing. The concept is clear without the refrain; indeed,
the repetition of the phrase “holy place” in the refrains
makes the hymn less, not more, effective.
Yes,
the refrain really needs to go. With it, the hymn is
more difficult and intricate and obvious. Without
it, the hymn is simple, plain, and ... subtle.
It’s
as if the refrain were the place where the hymnwright
walked up to the front of the chapel and interrupted the
hymn to say, “Hey, folks, did you get it? Did you get
my meaning?”
(By
the way, the original fourth line of the first stanza
was “Teach each other to obey.” But I changed it because
it wasn’t doctrinally correct. At church meetings, we
teach each other about God’s desires for us, but it is
the Holy Spirit and life itself — the choices that we
make — that teach us obedience.)
Intricacy
to the Point of Messiness
In
poetry, it’s often good to separate rhymes more widely
than in hymns.
I
love heroic couplets, where the rhyming is AABBCCDD and
so on. Alexander Pope is one of my favorite poets, especially
his “Essay on Man,” which includes, for instance, the
famous couplet: “Know then thyself, presume not God to
scan. / The proper study of mankind is Man.”
It’s
no easy feat to write at great length with every pair
of lines in perfect rhyme. I know — I have a long poem
called “Out of the Cage of Mirrors” that tries to use
the same form, and it’s hard.
Because
the pattern is so plain, it doesn’t feel clever.
It can become quite relentless. So in poetry it can be
quite effective to separate rhymes more widely. But can
it work in a hymn?
“The
Prophets Often Sweetly Speak”
By
Orson Scott Card
The
prophets often sweetly speak
Of
hope, of broken hearts reborn;
Sometimes
of futures far more bleak,
If
prideful hearts do not repent.
In grief our dying Savior's head was bent;
In joy he rose on resurrection morn.
If we desire to see his loving face,
Then brokenhearted first we seek his grace.
The
world, pretending to be wise,
Denies
the consequence of sin,
And
those who profit from those lies
Call
prophets cruel and pitiless.
How did our Savior's suffering begin?
He took the guilt of those he meant to bless.
If we desire to see his loving face,
Then brokenhearted first we seek his grace.
Not
till we know that sin is death
Can
we receive the Spirit's light;
Compassionate
with every breath,
Our
prophets call our sins by name.
For us he plunged into the endless night
To rescue every soul he could reclaim.
If we desire to see his loving face,
Then brokenhearted first we seek his grace.
When
we arise, our bodies new,
And
Jesus greets us as his own,
We'll
know the prophets' words were true
And
led us to our Father's throne.
Within that holy place where searching ends,
We'll meet our guides again and call them friends.
With broken hearts now healed by Jesus' grace,
And hand-in-hand with friends, we'll see his face.
The
first three lines of each stanza seem to follow a familiar
form. The first two lines don’t rhyme, but the third
line rhymes with the first line. So ... we naturally
expect that the fourth line will rhyme with the second,
in the standard ABAB rhyme scheme.
Instead,
the fourth line doesn’t rhyme with any of the lines that
went before. It feels wrong; it leaves the reader hanging,
waiting for the other shoe (or rhyme) to drop.
Then
we enter the refrain, and there we get a rhyme again —
but it’s a rhyme with the last word of the verse. It
resolves that “wrong” word, but still leaves us dangling,
waiting for a word that will rhyme with the second line
of the verse.
Which
finally comes in the second line of the refrain. So the
rhyme scheme is the unfamiliar ABACCB.
But
the “cleverness” is compounded by a rhythmic game: The
refrain, instead of being in the simple tetrameter of
the verse, is suddenly in pentameter, the nonmusical five-foot
line that is so brilliant in Shakespeare, but so awful
for composers to work with.
Musically,
then, the refrain will have to be markedly different from
the stanzas, so even as the first two lines of each refrain
resolve the rhymes, they create a new tension with the
extra foot in each line.
Then
the final couplet of the refrain, which is the same each
time, drags the whole hymn down to failure. Repetition
of an excellent couplet might have felt exhilarating to
sing, but “If we desire to see his loving face / Then
brokenhearted first we seek his grace” is didactic, not
emotional. It does not move us, it merely reminds us,
with an obvious rhyme and an overlong line, of what we
already know.
Can
this hymn be saved?
Yes
— by jettisoning most, but not all, of the “cleverness.”
First,
the refrain must be kept in a tetrameter line. Get rid
of that extra foot!
Second,
eliminate the last couplet of the refrain completely.
It adds nothing to the hymn; the congregation would be
sick of singing it long before they got through the whole
song.
Third,
get rid of the second verse entirely. It’s negative,
criticizing the world at large, and it includes awkward
words that don’t feel right to sing, like pitiless
and lies.
“The
Prophets Often Sweetly Speak” (simplified version)
By Orson Scott Card
The
prophets often sweetly speak
Of hope, of broken hearts reborn;
Sometimes of futures far more bleak,
If prideful hearts do not repent.
In grief our Savior's head was bent;
In joy he rose to greet the morn.
Not
till we know that sin is death
Can we receive the Spirit's light;
Compassionate with every breath,
Our prophets call our sins by name.
For us they journey through the night
To find the souls they can reclaim.
When
we arise, our bodies new,
And
Jesus greets us as his own,
We'll
know the prophets' words were true
And
led us to our Father's throne:
That
holy place where searching ends,
And
prophets greet us all as friends.
Now
we don’t have a refrain at all, do we? Instead, we have
three six-line stanzas. They keep that intricate ABACCB
rhyme scheme, but now each stanza ends with the resolution
of that long-withheld B rhyme, providing a much stronger
closure than the empty couplet ever did.
Notice,
though, that the last stanza does not (and never did)
retain the intricate rhyme scheme. Instead of ABACCB,
it’s a simple ABABCC. That, too, provides closure, and
ends the hymn on a simpler note.
It
may not yet be perfect, but by eliminating most of the
“cleverness,” it is obviously much improved.
Working
Out the Plan
You
have no idea how embarrassing this is — showing you hymns
that I once was very proud of, but which now I realize
don’t work. It would be so much more pleasant to try
to give you the illusion that I only write good hymns.
But you learn more from other writers’ errors than from
their successes.
With
all that I’ve already said, I imagine you’ll have no trouble
at all figuring out why this one is a mess:
“The
Plan”
By
Orson Scott Card
Our
Father gave us, by his grace,
This
earth to be our dwelling place.
He
set our hand
To
till and tend,
And
gave us hearing, speech, and sight
For
lives of music, truth, and light.
How we rejoiced when he told us his plan
To give us our agency, woman and man!
If we live as he taught, with joy we will meet face to
face.
Our
children give us, as they grow,
A
taste of God's work here below.
When,
being free,
They
disobey,
We
grieve for all the grief they earn
And
comfort them when they return.
How we rejoiced when he told us his plan
To give us our agency, woman and man!
If we live as he taught, what joy every family will know!
Our
Savior, having paid the cost,
Brings
home the ones who once were lost.
The
soul contrite,
The
broken heart
Will
hear of sweet forgiveness: "Nor
Do
I condemn — go, sin no more."
How we rejoiced when he told us his plan
To give us our agency, woman and man!
If we live as he taught, what joy when he gives us his
trust!
Once
again, there’s nothing wrong with the overall movement
of the hymn. It begins with the Lord giving us our mortal
bodies and the chance to live on earth. The second
stanza is about the main work of our mortal lives, to
rear children and learn to use our free agency wisely.
The final stanza is about the final gift of God, the sacrifice
of the Savior so that we can be redeemed from the consequence
of sins we repent of.
Why,
then, is this hymn so long and unwieldy?
By
now you already know. First the refrain has got to go.
The repeating couplet isn’t bad, with the rhyme of “plan”
and “man.” It’s that shifting last line, which rhymes
with the first couplet in each stanza, that wrecks it.
It’s too long, and it’s too “on the nose,” a little homily
to make sure nobody could possibly miss the point of the
hymn. Read through the hymn just deleting those final
lines and you’ll see how much improved it already is!
There
is still some needless intricacy in the stanzas: That
middle couplet with the slant rhyme should be cast as
a single line that seems not to rhyme with anything.
The internal slant rhyme will still be there, however,
so the line won’t feel as if it comes out of nowhere.
Finally,
we need to work on the last couplet in the last verse.
The enjambment can’t be helped and shouldn’t be: Nor
is the rhyme with more, so it has to be left dangling
at the end of the penultimate line. What needs fixing
is the dash, followed by go, followed by a comma.
It puts too heavy a burden on the composer to come up
with a melody that doesn’t clash with the phrasing of
the words.
“The
Plan” (improved version)
By
Orson Scott Card
Our
Father gave us, by his grace,
This
earth to be our dwelling place.
He
set our hand to till and tend,
And
gave us hearing, speech, and sight
For
lives of music, truth, and light.
Our
children give us, as they grow,
A
taste of God's work here below.
When,
being free, they disobey,
We
grieve for all the grief they earn
And
comfort them when they return.
Our Savior, having paid the cost,
Brings
home the ones who once were lost.
The
soul contrite, the broken heart
Will
hear of sweet forgiveness: "Nor
Do
I condemn thee. Sin no more."
Not
all the intricacy is gone — it still has five-line stanzas,
and because of the third stanza’s final couplet, the last
line cannot be repeated. So this hymn might end up with
the strangeness that would come from being ten measures
long. But then, perhaps that would be a welcome change!
There
is no rule that says intricacy and cleverness are bad.
But they’re dangerous; they impose extra burdens on the
singers and on the composer. A little intricacy goes
a long way, and cleverness should never call attention
to itself.
Post your comments — but not your own hymn texts,
unless you wish to surrender copyright! — here on Meridian.
And don’t send hymn texts to me! I’m not a music publisher.
However, if you’re a composer and wish to set one of my
hymns to music, don’t ask for my permission first. I
hereby grant you permission to use my hymn text free of
charge in your own musical setting, as long as you don’t
publish or sell the result.
In other words, you can perform your hymn as much as you
want. But the moment you want to publish it or record
it or charge for it, then we need to talk — I’ll
need to hear your hymn and decide if I approve of it before
you can publish, record, or charge for the combined work.
I can be reached at http://www.nauvoo.com
or http://www.hatrack.com.
And if I deny permission, then you can simply write your
own words to fit the music you wrote. You won’t lose
a thing.
This essay and the original hymn text are
copyright © 2004 by Orson Scott Card. Except as specified
above, all rights reserved.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2004 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved
|
