anatomy of more songs
Run an article through the four-part musicality test. It’s no guarantee of clarity, but clear and intriguing writing tends to do well on all measures.
- Writing rhythm —do the sentences vary? Color code them: 1-3 words yellow, 4-8 red, 9-13 green, 13+ blue.
- Article form —does the structure vary in a subtle, pleasant way?
- Argument harmony —is it easil
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Music done right captures a resonance between math and language.
Harmony/rhythm is basically a space/time language that is mathematical (an octave is a unit of space, a measure is a unit of time, and it’s all about how you carve and layer within those units). Lyrics are obviously the linguistic half of it. In the most basic songs, a nice poem is la
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