1. Meter and rhythm
Iambics
Trochaics
Anapestics
Dactylics
End

2. Iambics – de DAH Sand Martin’s Nest The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Clare wrote in strict iambic pentameter. This piece is played straight, through a vocoder to remove transients and alongside drum to highlight the stress.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Written in fairly loose iambic tetrameter. Read straight, and transposed into a drum track to highlight the stresses.
To Autumn
Written in varied iambics. Read in a variety of styles, with a variety of emphases.
King Lear
A line of iambic pentameter, read straight, “sing-song”, split (to highlight quantity), drums on stressed.
John Clare
Oscar Wilde
John Keats
Shakespeare

3. Oscar Wilde (from The Ballad of Reading Gaol)
Voice only.
Voice with drum track.
Drum track only.
back

4. John Clare (from The Sand Martin’s Nest)
Spoken word only.
Spoken and drum.
Vocoder (transients removed).
back

5. John Keats (from To Autumn)
Read “poetically”
Read with caesura mid line
Read without any stresses
Read as prose
back

6. William Shakespeare (from King Lear)
Spoken word only.
Stressed syllables.
Unstressed syllables.
With drum on stressed.
back

7. “Tell me not in mournful numbers.”
Trochaics – DAH de
Sounds – such as drum patterns, “dah de”, piano - which spell out Trochaic patterns
The Psalm
of Life
A poem with sections in the somewhat uncommon English meter of the Trochee.
“Tell me not in mournful numbers.”
Sounds
Longfellow

8. Sounds
The drum pattern here plays a 2/4 musical pattern with the stress on the first beat – as in a Trochee.
The voice here spells out a trochaic (DAH de). Note how much longer the DAH is…
drum
voice
back

9. Anapestics – de de DAH
Sounds produced to highlight the metrical flow of the Anapestic rhythm
The Destruction
Of Sennacherib
A stanza from Lord Byron’s typically direct poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib”.
“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold”
Sounds
Byron

10. Sounds
The drum pattern here plays out a 3/4 musical bar, with the stress on the last beat: an anapest.
The drum here is playing an anapestic as you would hear it spoken: note how different it is the the musical 3/4 time above.
drum
drum2
back

11. Dactylics “Thou on whose stream like the steep sky’s commotion.”
Various sounds recorded to highlight the sombre dactylic meter.
Ode to
the West Wind
A line from Shelley’s poem treated in various ways to stress different aspects of the meter.
“Thou on whose stream like the steep sky’s commotion.”
Sounds
Shelley

12. Sounds
The drum pattern here plays a 3/4 musical pattern with the stress on the first beat: a Dactyl.
The drum plays a Dactylic line, but as it would be spoken. A less rigid feel to the musical pattern above.
drum
drum2
back

13. Round up Compare the four main metrical feet found in English Prosody
Iamb
Trochee
Anapest
Dactyl