Final answer:
A contrafactum is a song that features new lyrics set to a preexisting melody, a practice common in various musical traditions, including the crafting of ballads and adaptation of hymns.
Step-by-step explanation:
A song created by writing a new text to a preexisting melody can be referred to as a contrafactum. This technique has been a longstanding tradition in the world of music, where an artist uses the familiar melodies of a song and writes new lyrics to them.
Historically, this has been seen in various contexts, such as the adaptation of secular tunes for religious texts, or the rewording of songs for political purposes.
The process of creating a contrafactum often involves the artist connecting deeply with the theme and creating a text that can be as flexible as poetry, which lends a different emotional layer or meaning to the existing melody. The essence is to bring a new interpretative dimension to the melody, without altering its original harmonic structure, which often resonates with an audience because of its familiarity while engaging them with new lyrical content.
Ballads, historically, are a great example of songs with stories passed down in this manner, sometimes with the text being rewritten or adapted over time. The cultural and human experience get reflected in these adaptations, where each new version of the text offers insight into the era or the artist's perspective, much like the hymns of the Choctaw tribes that expressed the collective trauma and experiences of their people.