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Have you ever had to change your lyrics to get them to rhyme? Only to compromise the meaning and emotion of your song? For a lot of beginning songwriters, this is the case. Rhyme types and rhyme schemes should not just support the meaning and emotion of our lyrics but they should help create it. Along with different rhyme schemes, rhyme types can really help to add mood and emotion to a lyric as well as keeping the listener interested. So let’s have a look at the main types of rhyme we use in songwriting and what effect they have on our lyrics. https://youtu.be/-iKdn6rsTFI Identical rhyme So first up is identical rhyme. This is where we rhyme a word with itself. Some people might think it's just lazy songwriting or call it repetition. It all depends how you use it. Skater boy - Avril Lavigne He was a skater boy She said, "see you later, boy" Our human ears love repetition, it makes things easier to remember by drawing your attention to it and emphasizing it. She could have used “see you later guy”, but the title of the song is Skater Boy with an emphasis on Boy. This is a good one to reserve for our courses as a way to emphasize words through repetition. Emphasis through Repetition. Identical rhyme is also used when a word has two different meanings. War Pigs - Black Sabbath Gen'rals gathered in their masses, Just like witches at black masses So again, here it’s used for emphasis. Like the joke, a man walks into a bar...and hurts his head. So in the joke, the comedy lies in first seeing the bar as a place to buy drinks then realizing it was an iron bar the man hit his head on. The lyric is emphasizing the same sense of incongruity, the gathering generals is not a noble, heroic or brave act but more an act of malice and evil of want and destruction. Perfect rhyme This is one we are all familiar with. It’s when the accented vowel sounds and the end consonant sounds are the same. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson This hit, that ice cold Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold. You want to speak with certainty and confidence? A perfect rhyme will give a lyric the feeling of a statement of fact. Why? Because it is sonically almost identical to the word it’s being rhymed with. Remember how we said repetition creates emphasis, same thing. The vowel and ending consonant sounds are being repeated. The stronger that sonic connection, the bigger the full stop. So it's great for making a strong statement, strong statements like those often found in a chorus. Reo Speedwagon - keep on loving you And I'm gonna keep on lovin' you 'Cause it's the only thing I want to do And that goes for any sentiment the lyric might have from pleasantries to bitter disdain. Ceelo green - forget you “I guess the change in my pocket Wasn't enough I'm like, Forget you! And forget her too!” The perfect rhyme’s strength is also its main drawback. Because the sonic connection is so strong, it is the first thing that comes to mind, Therefore it’s common and overused and will quickly give a lyric a healthy layer of cheese if it’s overused. But that’s not to say steer clear at all costs, there are plenty of reasons a perfect rhyme is a perfect choice. Emotional EffectIt makes a strong statement and a strong feeling of resolution. Family rhyme This is where things get interesting. Family rhymes have the same accented vowel sound and the ending consonants sound phonetically similar. E.g. sat / back Family rhymes are great substitutes for perfect rhymes. We still get a lot of that feeling of resolution but now our rhyming options are infinitely more interesting. when sung, our ears can’t really tell the difference. But that slight sonic difference can still have a big impact. Rolling in the deep - Adele There's a fire starting in my heart Reaching a fever pitch and it's bringing me out the dark That slight sonic disconnect reflects the sentiment of the lyric. The fire in Adele's heart isn’t one of joy, it’s one of hurt. That’s the key to deciding what type of rhyme type to use to help get our lyric’s meaning across...EMOTION The trick is to use consonant sounds that belong to the same phonetic family Plosive, a consonant produced by stopping the airflow using the lips, teeth, or palate, followed by a sudden release of air. E.g. pub/ pup find/ pint bring/pink Bad guy - Billie Eilish Make your mama sad type Make your girlfriend mad tight Fricative, a consonant made by the friction of breath in a narrow opening, producing turbulent airflow. E.g. love/ stuff fuss/ buzz Happy - Pharell Williams Huh, because I'm happy Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof Because I'm happy Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth Nasal, a consonant pronounced by the breath resonating in the nose. E.g. son/ flung T-Rex Get it on, bang a gong, get it on Get it on, bang a gong, get it on Emotional Effect Nearly the same emotional feel as a perfect rhyme, but with the addition of sounding sophisticated. It’s more mature and has added weight. To make family rhymes, just switch the ending consonant sound with any of the other consonant sounds from the same family. If you use https://www.rhymezone.com/ or b-rhymes.com to search for these, just take the word you want to rhyme and change the end consonant to one in its family. So for heart, we could do heark - use ark, and look for rhymes for ark. Mark, sharp, etc, and repeat the process with the other family members. Additive/ Subtractive rhyme This is when a consonant has been added or subtracted from a matching accented vowel sound. We are getting sonically further away from our perfect rhyme types. Things feel a little more shaky and incomplete. So if our lyrics reflected that, this type of rhyme would really drive the point home. Post malone - circles Seasons change and our love went cold Feed the flame 'cause we can't let go So the sentiment of the lyric is about a love bond that is falling apart and what better way to say it than with a sonic bond that has some distance in it. So that’s a subtractive rhyme, Additive rhyme types basically work in reverse to this. When looking for these we can refer back to our consonant chart. Say we want an additive rhyme for “free”, add a consonant from the chart to get “feet”/”fever”/ “fleeing”. Then just do the reverse for subtractive rhymes. The fewer consonants you add or subtract, the closer the sonic bound will be. Emotional EffectProduces uncertainty, a feeling of longing. Emphasis through addition or subtraction of sounds Assonance rhyme With assonance rhyme, the accented vowel sounds are the same but the ending consonants sounds are different. e.g. hate/ tame Firework - Katy Perry You just gotta ignite the light And let it shine Just own the night Like the Fourth of July Notice in this song the assonance rhyme is used in the pre chorus. There is a lot of tension building in the pre chorus of this song, and most songs. This type of rhyme really helps support and create that feeling of tension before the chorus explodes like a firework. Then look at the next two lines. Even more tension is caused by our final rhyme type. Firework - Katy Perry You just gotta ignite the light And let it shine Just own the night Like the Fourth of July Consonance rhyme A consonance rhyme type is when the accented vowel sounds don’t match but the ending consonants have the same sound. So the emotion being created with this is one of tension, it’s building, it’s unstable, it’s desperate for resolution. And when the chorus gives us all that, it seems to explode like a firework. If you are writing a song about your life falling apart, try using some consonance rhymes and see how it brings the emotion to life. with assonance rhymes, we switch the consonant sound for sounds from a different family but keep the matching vowel sounds. With Consonance rhymes, the vowel sounds don’t match. Look at that section of firework again. These things don’t happen by accident. Go and find perfect rhymes for this section of the “firework” and see for yourself how different it feels. That is the only way to really understand the effect of different rhyme types Start with the examples I’ve given you and switch the perfect rhymes for consonance rhymes, switch the family rhymes for additive or subtractive rhymes and feel the difference it makes to the lyrics.

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