Song Setting

I found it very difficult to write words for music I had written. I was a bit puzzled by this at one time, but the reason is a very simple one. My melodic lines were rhythmically complex and sometimes long. There were a lot of notes. It is much, much easier to go in the other direction. Unless, of course, you write melodies that already fit a strophic form. When I start with a text, it is easy to find a melodic shape that fits that text. You might think too that there are only 12 notes but thousands of words, so you have too many possibilities for a lyric.