So Many Forms, So Little Time (PE 2011)

Ballad - Wk 28

Lesson 28

How to Write a Ballad
Ballads are very easy to write.
They are verses which can (but don't have to be) sung to music.
Originally ballads were not written down and were passed down from generation to generation orally; the music helped people to remember the story.
They have a specific rhyming structure, which is usually four lines long (either abab, or aabb, or abac, where the last line is a chorus line).
They have a set number of syllables. Decide upon your own and make sure that you stick to it.
There is often a chorus which is repeated throughout the ballad and which sums up the story of the ballad.
If you do want to make sure your lines rhyme, try www.rhymezone.com. Try typing the sound of the part of the word that rhymes, rather than the whole word. You'll get more options that way. Secondly, do not get so caught up in rhyming you can't make it make sense.
To start your ballad, find one phrase, a line or two, that you like, and build your song from there.
Start by writing the chorus - you can repeat that over and over throughout the song leaving it unchanged or changing it only slightly each time.
Then add the verses.
If you know the story you want to tell, but you're having trouble putting it into a poetic structure, write out the story first. Don't worry about putting the story into verse yet--just get the key words down. You may find it easier to organize once the story is written.
From: http://www.squidoo.com/playgroundpoets

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Ballad

A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject matter but most frequently deals with folk-lore or popular legends. They are written in straight-forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are suitable for singing and, while sometimes varied in practice, are generally written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming.
From: http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/types.html