Irish Dancing RHYME SCHEME and FORM
- Alex Smith
- Mar 5, 2022
- 3 min read
Let's Dance!
OH! AYE DI AYE DI AYE DI AYE DI AYE DI AYE DI AY!
***Parents. If you're reading this. This is the Irish Dancing song form. We haven't called it anything else, and the students have a great time working with the fun lilt of the phrasing.
The Form of the IDS (Irish dancing song)
First let's talk about the form.
There are 2 - 4 stanza's in this music (in class we did 2 stanzas). And honestly this song is set up to go through the set as many times as you'd like. That's what makes it fun.
Remember when we're looking for form we're listening for different sections. Since this song has lyrics, we'll refer to the sections as verses and choruses.
The first section we have in the song is the section that goes, "OH, AY DI AY...etc..."
This section has it's own words and it repeats these exact words a lot! So we can call this section the ......duh duh duh duh!!!!!!!
THE CHORUS!
After the chorus we get lyrics that tell us a story. We don't hear these words more than once, but we do hear their melody when the section comes back. So if we hear different words, but the same melody then we are getting the.....VERSE!
We don't get any other sections besides the verse or the chorus so now we just need to confirm the order. The chorus comes first, then the verse. That makes this a
Chorus, Verse Verse Chorus song. (in letter form it's ABBA)
Rhyme Scheme
Okay now for the lyrics. We look at each stanza to see where words that match line up.
Honestly. The chorus is nonsense. It is a solid A section. It rhymes with confidence all in one big phrase. We still haven't gotten to phrase yet...so it's okay if this makes as much sense as the words of the chorus themselves. The verse on the other hand does have a rhyme scheme.
Let's look at these words
STANZA 1
I have a pretzel
On it is some salt
It's pretty salty
I want a chocolate malt
Stanza 2
If I had some ice cream
then that would be sweet
but I'm stuck here with this pretzel
in this super sunny heat
Which words rhymed?
STANZA 1
I have a pretzel
On it is some salt
It's pretty salty
I want a chocolate malt
STANZA 2
If I had some ice cream
then that would be sweet
but I'm stuck here with this pretzel
in this super sunny heat
In Stanza one we have SALT and MALT that rhyme on the 2nd and 4th lines. If we labeled the first line 1-A then 2-B then 3-C (because they all have different words) when we get to the 4th line we finally find our rhyming match. This will change our lettering.
Line 1 stays as A because it's first.
Line 2 stays line B because it doesn't rhyme and it's second.
Line 3 becomes an A (because we'll talk about this in a second).
Line 4 becomes a B because it rhymes with line 2.
.
Now, why does the third line get called A when it doesn't rhyme with the first line. Well friends, this is where we getting into phrasing. Our melody phrases are the same for both line one and three. You can't hear that typed here in this post so I'm sorry about that, but when they have the same melody, they also have potential to rhyme together. Just because they don't here, doesn't mean they won't ever. In this instance we use the matching melody to match up the phrasing so that we know both lines are "A" lines.
Practice making your own
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