Verse
The psalm verse uses a "pulsed tone" technique, with a variable number of syllables between the main pulses (barlines). Each line has a prescribed number of accented syllables, even though the total number of syllables varies from line to line. In that sense, it may be regarded as similar to the song Three Blind Mice: each line contains the same number of bars (pulses), but the number of syllables varies from three ("Three blind mice") to eleven "Did ever you see such a thing in your life". But unlike that song, Gelineau insists "the words must never be allowed to fall into set musical rhythmical patterns which are opposed to the natural relative lengths of their syllables when correctly spoken". It is thus a form of sprung rhythm.
Read more about this topic: Gelineau Psalmody
Famous quotes containing the word verse:
“My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
“Free verse leaves out the meter and makes up
For the deficiency by church intoning.
Free verse, so called, is really cherished prose....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Verse calls them forth; ‘tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.”
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)