The Metrical Index identifies the number of syllables in each line of poetic text. It's a tool that's useful for giving a familiar poetic text a new flavor with a different melody. You also can introduce a new text by using a familiar tune.

1. Select a song and count the syllables in each line of the verse. In the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth," for example, we find seven syllables in the first line:
   For the beau-ty of the earth.

   In fact, each line has the same number of syllables in this particular piece, as follows:

   For the beau-ty of the earth (7)

   For the glo-ry of the skies, (7)

   For the love which from our birth (7)

   O-ver and a-round us lies; (7)

   Lord of all, to thee we raise (7)

   This our hymn of grate-ful praise. (7)

   The index summarizes this meter as 77.77.77. The periods indicate where rhyming words are found.

2. Select a hymn tune from the index with the same meter that works well with the text. Make note of the character of the music and the way in which the text is emphasized by the melody. Many hymnals have a metrical index, so you can interchange melodies between pieces from time to time.

   77.77.77 is a meter shared with "Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies" in the index on this page. Other familiar hymns with the same meter include "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me" and "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me." Try it out and see.

3. If the exact meter of the poetry does not have a match, look for similar patterns. Notice that "God Is in You and Me" has a meter that very nearly matches Common Meter (66.86).