What are 'soft' and 'hard' syllables?

So, what do they mean by hard and soft syllables?

· Quatrain stanzas
· 1st and 3rd lines are in iambic tetrameter (eight syllables alternating soft and hard)
· 1st and 3rd lines have an internal rhyme
· 2nd and 4th lines in iambic trimeter (six syllables alternating soft and hard)
· 2nd and 4th lines will rhyme

^^
The above are the instructions for the ballad....but I don't get the syllable thing? Help?

Usually hard and soft refer to the actual sound of the syllables. Hard syllables usually have a hard consonant/combination: b, d, g, j, k, p, q, r, t, tch, v, x, or z. Soft syllables have either no consonants or softer consonants/combinations: f, h, l, m, n, s, sh, or th.

In the context of your directions, though, I think they meant stresses since meter deals with stresses.

Stress is the amount of emphasis given to a syllable. Syllables can be stressed or unstressed. For instance, "Whose woods these are I think I know" from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" has a definite beat due to how it alternates between unstressed and stressed syllables. I bolded the stressed syllables so you could better see the pattern.

Iambic meters are very natural in English, so you shouldn't have too much trouble coming up with an unstressed-stressed pattern.

Thanks. You're right, once I started it, the pattern just took off, and I only had to tweak it in a few places. :p

Why do I suddenly feel like I'm back in math class?

I'm trying to write in iambic pentameter and this stuff is hard! Reading your poem out loud might help to identify the syllables -- generally I find it's easier to write it and then tweak to fit the unstressed-stressed pattern. If you read some Shakespeare carefully you can see that he sometimes slipped in a random "to" or something to make it work.