If you create the lyrics first, it constrains creating the tune. If you create the tune first, it constrains creating the lyrics. Which is best for overall effect-–tight constraint tackled first, looser one second-–or looser first, tighter second? (The answer applies as well to composing the elements of one's life.) Noël Coward’s reasoned answer:
Being a natural musician, I found it easier to write to tunes jangling in my head than to devote myself to mastering iambics, trochees, anapaests, or dactyls. If a tune came first I would set words to it. If the words came first, I would set them to music at the piano.
This latter process almost invariable necessitated changing the verse to fit the tune. If you happen to be born with a built-in sense of rhythm, any verse you write is apt to fall into a set pattern and remain within its set pattern until it is completed. This is perfectly satisfactory from the point of view of reading or reciting, but when you attempt to set your pattern to a tune, either the tune gives in and allows itself to be inhibited by the rigidity of your original scansion or it rebels, refuses to be dominated and displays some ideas of its own, usually in the form of unequal lines and unexpected accents. This is why I very seldom write a lyric first and set it to music later.
(Quoted from page 10 of Noël Coward: The Complete Lyrics, by Noël Coward. The Overlook Press, 1998.)
For a brief biography of Noël Coward, click here. For images of or relating to Noël Coward, click here.
Being a natural musician, I found it easier to write to tunes jangling in my head than to devote myself to mastering iambics, trochees, anapaests, or dactyls. If a tune came first I would set words to it. If the words came first, I would set them to music at the piano.
This latter process almost invariable necessitated changing the verse to fit the tune. If you happen to be born with a built-in sense of rhythm, any verse you write is apt to fall into a set pattern and remain within its set pattern until it is completed. This is perfectly satisfactory from the point of view of reading or reciting, but when you attempt to set your pattern to a tune, either the tune gives in and allows itself to be inhibited by the rigidity of your original scansion or it rebels, refuses to be dominated and displays some ideas of its own, usually in the form of unequal lines and unexpected accents. This is why I very seldom write a lyric first and set it to music later.
(Quoted from page 10 of Noël Coward: The Complete Lyrics, by Noël Coward. The Overlook Press, 1998.)
For a brief biography of Noël Coward, click here. For images of or relating to Noël Coward, click here.
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