You see these in musical scores in musical sheets with a string of notes written. If not through music, you see them as a form of lines with words that do not form sentences. You see them in haikus, sonnets, and other variety of poems. In literary jargon, musical jargon, and elements of poetry, they are called stanzas.
A stanza is referred to as a group of lines found in a lyrics of a song, or found in a poem that is often separated from the other set of lines through a small or large space, or a group of blank lines. Stanzas are considered as a paragraph writing in itself when viewing them in a prose manner.
How do you start writing a stanza? The stanza can be in literary form or as a form of lyrics to music. What you need to remember is that each stanza may it be for poetry or lyrics to music has its own weight, outline format, and value. With that in mind, here are steps to follow to write your own stanzas.
There are a lot of ways to make stanzas. But they will also depend on the format you are going to be using. Since lyrics and poetic stanzas may almost look the same in format, there are cases in poetry that these stanzas would differ. Choosing the correct format will be helpful.
In poetry, there are traditional rhyme schemes to formulate your stanzas. The traditional rhyme schemes consists of AABB, ABAB, ABCD. If you do not wish to follow the traditional rhyme schemes, you may use a freestyle rhyme scheme. Freestyle rhyme schemes do not follow the traditional rhyme schemes and may give you a better range to poetic justice. Rhyme schemes do not affect the theme of your stanzas.
In poetry, there are a lot of different lengths to using stanzas. Even for music. The most common for music is four to six stanzas with 4 to 6 lines, but they can be more or even less. For poetry, this may differ and depend according to the person writing and the format.
Revise, edit, and repeat until you are satisfied with your stanzas. It will take a lot of trial and error which is normal when writing your stanzas. But the important part is when you revise and edit, you are also checking for errors and spelling.
The most common types of stanzas are: couplet, triplet, quatrain, cinquain, and sestet. A couplet is a two line stanza that almost all the time rhymes. A triplet, from the term itself is a three line stanza. The rhyme scheme is often in ABA or AAA. A quatrain is a four line stanza whose rhyme scheme are ABAB, AABB, ABCB, or AABC. Cinquain is the five line stanza. The syllable count is 2-4-6-8-2. Sestet is the six line stanza and may have various of rhyme schemes. The difference is at the final two lines, it has a different rhyme scheme or turn.
In order to get the right stanza, you must also know the elements of it. With that, the elements of a stanza are: line length, rhyme scheme, meter, stanza length, imagery, theme, and tone.
The reason why stanzas are important, is because they are an important key and element to poetry. Stanzas provide structure, form, and rhythm in poetry and music. Stanzas help in making poetry and music a purpose and a format.
We all know for a fact that when you think of stanzas, you think of poetry, sonnets, haikus, odes, or even liturgies. You know for a fact that they are important and have their own values. Stanzas help structure your poems and lyrics to your songs.
