# Meter Prosody

> Scan lines and make structure serve meaning with Pat Pattison's methods. Meter (scansion, Paradigms I/II/III, Pentad, Goldilocks, the 'into' rule, In Memoriam quatrain, pitch-stress), prosody (motion-emotion, greedy spots, tone-of-voice, three phrasing types), section stability (stable/unstable scan), and lyric-melody alignment. Use when: 'scan this line', 'can this be common meter', 'is this verse stable or unstable', 'my words don't fit the music', 'greedy spot in line 2', 'set lyrics to this tune', 'does my song feel right'. For song sections/form use /songwriting:song-form; for rhyme use /songwriting:rhyme.

- Skill: `melodic-software/meter-prosody` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add melodic-software/meter-prosody`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/melodic-software/meter-prosody/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: melodic-software (https://skillmd.com/u/melodic-software)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/melodic-software/meter-prosody

---


## Mandatory pre-flight. Response Filter

Before emitting a scansion verdict, stability call, phrasing judgement, or any rewrite, run
**§3 Critique filter** of [response-filter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/response-filter.md)
(add **§2 Line-writing** when producing lines). NAME each box's pass / fail / skip-with-reason
(aloud or in reasoning); correct before emission. Skips are valid; silent skips are not.

§3 is the filter for findings delivered on a draft, which is what this skill emits. §6 Form is
NOT the gate here: its boxes decide song shape. Chorus versus refrain, whether a bridge is
needed, and this skill's own boundary forbids it from making that call.

## Purpose

The sound-and-motion layer: whether the number, placement, and stress of syllables — and the
stability of each section — support the meaning and emotion. Covers scansion, prosody, phrasing,
stable/unstable analysis, and fitting lyric to melody.

Method content is Pat Pattison's, under the plugin-root `../../context/pat-pattison/`; a future
author's method plugs in at `context/<author>/` without changing this skill, the author seam per
the plugin-root `../../README.md` "Method content and the author seam".

## Action Router

`/songwriting:meter-prosody <action> [args]`. Parse `$ARGUMENTS`: first token = action when it matches a listed action, remainder = args; otherwise treat all of `$ARGUMENTS` as payload for the default.
No action → route on context (a pasted line → `meter`; a "does this feel right" → `stability`).

| Action | Use when the user asks for | Load |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `meter` | scansion, tetrameter, common meter, stress, Paradigms, Pentad, Goldilocks, 'into' rule, In Memoriam, pitch-stress | [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md) |
| `prosody` | whether structure supports meaning, motion, greedy spots, tone-of-voice | [prosody](../../context/pat-pattison/research/prosody.md), [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md), [stable-unstable-meta](../../context/pat-pattison/research/stable-unstable-meta.md) |
| `phrasing` | the three phrasing types, front/back-heavy lines, breath and pacing | [phrasing](../../context/pat-pattison/research/phrasing.md), [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md), [prosody](../../context/pat-pattison/research/prosody.md) |
| `stability` | section-level stable/unstable scan, "does my song feel right" | [stable-unstable-meta](../../context/pat-pattison/research/stable-unstable-meta.md) |
| `align-melody` | lyric-melody mismatch, setting words to a tune, roadmap problems, greedy spots, fitting a replacement line to a demo's or cover's sung melody | [lyric-melodic-roadmaps](../../context/pat-pattison/research/lyric-melodic-roadmaps.md), [phrasing](../../context/pat-pattison/research/phrasing.md), [prosody](../../context/pat-pattison/research/prosody.md), [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md) "fitting a replacement line to an already-sung melody" |

## Handlers

- **Pre-flight ALWAYS:** run response-filter §3 (+ §2 when producing lines) before output.
- Scan concretely: mark stresses, name the paradigm, and say what the meter does FOR the meaning, not scansion for its own sake.
- Stability is a tool, not a verdict: name whether a section reads stable or unstable and whether
  that serves the section's job; the writer chooses.
- Stress-alignment failures route through `align-melody` + `prosody`. Name the frame, because the
  scope differs:
  - **Lyric against a model lyric** (matching verse 2 to verse 1): "greed" is one-directional: a stressed syllable forced into a position the model leaves unstressed. The chapter's other
    failure, "too cold," is **not** a mirror-image stress error and is not a stress error at all:
    the stresses land correctly and the strong positions carry filler. Do not scan for it; no
    stress check finds it. Read what stands on each strong position instead.
  - **Lyric against a melody**: a mismatch in *either* direction is a greedy spot, a stressed
    syllable on a weak beat, or an unstressed syllable riding a strong one. Both distort the
    natural shape of the language.
- Replacement lines over an already-sung melody (demo, cover, AI-generated track) get a
  **positional template** first: the sung line's syllables numbered with its stressed slots
  bracketed, per [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md) "fitting a replacement line
  to an already-sung melody". Matching the stress COUNT is not fitting, the positions are the
  template, and the singer's actual phrasing outranks the inferred grid. This skill emits the
  template, never the fitted line; the line goes to `/songwriting:co-write` per the boundary table
  below.

## Persistence and template overrides

Write generated files to the paths in
[artifact-persistence](../../context/pat-pattison/research/artifact-persistence.md)
"Where generated work persists", and honor a consuming project's own songwriting layout when it
defines one. Before loading any bundled `templates/<name>.md`, check
`${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/songwriting/templates/pat-pattison/<name>.md` first: a project-level
override wins over the bundled skill default, first match, per that file's "Template override".

## Boundary. What this skill must NOT emit

This skill measures. It does not write the line it measures, and it does not choose the words that
fix a bad scan.

| If you are about to emit | STOP and route to |
| --- | --- |
| A rewritten line that scans better | `/songwriting:co-write` line-brainstorm |
| A replacement word chosen for its stress pattern and rhyme | `/songwriting:rhyme` |
| A judgement that a section is the wrong length or shape | `/songwriting:song-form` |

**Measure in stressed syllables, never raw syllables.** Line length in this method is the count of
stressed syllables; a raw-syllable count is a different measurement that answers a different
question. Reporting one as the other invents symmetry that is not there. A chorus that reads 8/9/9/8
by raw syllables can be 3/4/3/3 by stress, and the symmetry the raw count showed does not exist.
If the stress map has not been marked, the length claim has not been made: mark it, or say the box
was skipped.

## Related skills

- Section identification, form-fit, hook placement → `/songwriting:song-form`
- Rhyme position and stability → `/songwriting:rhyme strategy`
- Whole-draft diagnosis → `/songwriting:diagnose`