I have been researching many various sites regarding advice for how to
properly write lyrics in Japanese.

Some say that you just [write what you want; not even syllabic structure is
needed](http://www.octavebox.com/songwriting/japanese-rock/).

On the other hand, I've seen documentation speaking meticulously on the
specific ways Japanese lyrics should be written. It even goes in to a more
mathematical, calculating way to view how to write words for Japanese songs.

I wonder if the latter is old-fashioned/customary method compared to a more
modern, contemporary method.

Any help, opinion or further advice on this matter would be very appreciated.
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song-lyrics
The "right" way to write Japanese lyrics
One thing that struck me quite vividly when I first started to listen to
Japanese lyrics is the near-ubiquity of mora-rhythm correspondence. You have
probably already noticed, but compared to English, syllables and
vowel/consonant combinations are broken or skipped much less often. I won't
say you can't (especially in hip-hop), but it seems to be avoided.

Most unintuitive (for English native speakers, probably) is the case of ん.
"なんだ" takes up three syllables' worth in the majority of songs I have heard
over the years). Similarly for っ: typically the previous mora is lengthened
(it's not really possible to _sing_ a stop) to preserve intelligibility.
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2014-02-15T23:47:02.243
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From the Japanese songs I've listened to, I belive that you do not need to be
that careful about the number of kanas in a line. You can always do two
things:

  1. Sing the lyrics kana-by-kana or "the ordinary way". For example, 階段｛かいだん｝ could be sung as either just _kai-dan_ or _ka-i-da-n_. The former would be 2 syllables and the latter would be 4 syllables.
  2. Give "unorthodox" _furigana_ to words. I'll illustrate this by an example, which is from Morning Musume's 「時空｛とき｝を超え 宇宙｛そら｝を超え」:

> 時空｛とき｝を超え 宇宙｛そら｝を超え 結ばれる頃には
>
> この地球｛ほし｝は きれいになるかな

Note that 時空, 宇宙 and 地球 are usually pronounced じくう, うちゅう and ちきゅう,
respectively, while とき, そら and ほし are respectively 時, 空 and 星. However, the
songwriter may assign to words whatever reading they desire, even if it is not
a valid reading of the word.

Sometimes this is used for special effect, but sometimes it's probably just to
fit the number of syllables, such as this line in AKB48's 「桜の花びらたち」:

> その背中に 夢の翼｛はね｝が 生えてる

I don't really see a reason why 翼 is not pronounced つばさ as it usually is,
besides that the syllables would not fit...

Of course, if you are writing _enka_ , you might need to be more careful about
the number of syllables. But I suppose you are not into that, so you don't
have to get mathematical about the number of syllables.
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