How GREAT SONGWRITERS use RHYME!

rhyme scheme is very much like the motion of a car rhyme scheme sets up tension and then releases tension or resolves that tension but here is the thing every time we resolve rhyme we create a speed bump which is to say we create a moment of pause or stopping and if we are constantly resolving our Rhymes in rhyming couplets or even in rhyme schemes that close off the rhyme too quickly we never achieve the kind of motion that is actually possible to achieve if we break out of rhyme scheme cliches it's important that we break down what that actually means okay let's talk about rhyme scheme cliches and what they are and what their impact is so to break that down the first thing we need to Define is what a rhyme scheme is so a rhyme scheme is really the pattern of rhyme that happens at the end of a line which makes it structural rhyme and structural rhyme tells us when an ID or a section has closed off and what kind of closure we have so we're not talking about internal Rhymes we're talking about really the very last word of each line that's the focus that's right and the other thing we're not talking about with rhyme scheme is rhyme type rhyme type is something different so if I rhyme the word time with the word night that is still a rhyme but it's what's called an assonance Rhyme or broadly known as a slant rhyme so that's rhyme type that's not what we're talking about rhyme scheme is all about the pattern of rhyme that sets up an expectation that something's going to resolve it's rhyme and really rhyme scheme is about how we resolve that setup of rhyme so that explains what rhyme schemes are what about this concept of cliches so rhyme scheme cliche is a default rhyme scheme that a lot of songwriters will habitually default to um unless we actively think about other options and other alternatives for rhyme schemes so there are really two rhyme scheme cliches that people tend to default to and those rhyme scheme cliches are the rhyming couplets which we can Define as a a b b where we're using letters of the alphabet to notate lines that rhyme with each other so a rhyming couplet two lines that rhyme with each other we would call that a a and if we then write another two lines that rhyme with themselves we would call that BB so that's our first rhyme scheme cliche AABB the second rhyme scheme cliche is a b a b so that's alternating Rhymes and again it's a little more open of a rhyme scheme than AABB but it's again just a rhyme scheme cliche in the sense that it's something that people default to over and over again and often without Thinking Beyond those two patterns of rhyme schemes people might just continue to write songs that have nothing other than those two rhyme schemes for their entire lives let's actually talk a minute about rhyme scheme notation so understanding the notation is really going to help us talk very quickly about song analysis and help us write in certain rhyme schemes so this is best demonstrated through examples we can see here again focusing on the last word of each line that we have girl you knew do so when a line is unrimed we are going to give it the notation X so our x lines are lines that don't rhyme at all and so that word girl at the top is unrimed with anything else so it gets the X notation and then we have a series of a Rhymes so you knew do or rhyme with each other we get a a as we move on to the next part of this verse we have boy scene being clean again boy is unriped with anything it gets an X notation but we have a new sound in play so the scene being clean is obviously a different sound to the you new do and so it gets the BBB notation so x a a x BBB makes up that Prime scheme if we were to look at the entire song lyric anytime a new rhyme sound is introduced will move on in the letter of the alphabet however if a familiar rhyme sound reoccurs something that we've already heard before we will give it the notation that we gave it before so let's say for example in that Sam Smith song in the bridge section that we had the sound e we have in clean scene being mean is that e sound well we're going to revert back to the B rhyme analysis to show that the ear is going to hear that connection back to that familiar sound and that's really useful when you're looking at you know your lyrics laid out on an entire sheet you can actually look down and see where you've reused certain rhyme sounds throughout the whole song regardless of what section it's in now that we've discussed what Ryan cliches are and how they work now that we've looked at how rhyme notation works it's time for us to show you three of our favorite rhyme schemes that are alternatives to some of the more common ones things so let's start by showing how this would work in an example lyric just using the end line rhymes for example what we might have is bone home stone sting night alive try bring so again we have to imagine that these words happen at the end of the lines of lyric and part of the reason that I love this rhyme scheme and we're going to see this in an example song in a moment is that it's a true eight line section so this breaks out of that four line or even with AABB those are two little fragments that resolve internally so we're breaking out of this two line or four line system and really building a longer Arc of tension and then release so the fact that we have this consecutive rhyme pattern AAA that then breaks the pattern with B that b rhyme becomes a dangler it's like an open door or a question mark that is the thing that suddenly needs to be resolved and what happens is we don't resolve it straight away we restart the pattern with a new Ryan time sound c c but in recreating that consecutive rhyme it builds the expectation that the pattern is going to resolve symmetrically and that's exactly what we do in this rhyme scheme and it turns out if you create that longer Arc of tension you leave that dangler and then restart the pattern in a way that indicates a promise the promise that it is going to resolve in an expected way when you do resolve the resolution is actually much more impactful and much weightier than a simple ABA rhyme scheme if we go back to the original car on the highway metaphor we've essentially taken out one of the speed bumps the speed bump is now coming in after eight lines we've taken out that one after four which would have slowed everything down at the halfway point but this sort of allows the momentum to build and then pause at that eighth line exactly they're throwing high kicks building human pyramids [Music] but you and me we hide away from the Hit Parade where a different kind of cliche smoking other ideas [Music] the second rhyme scheme we're going to focus on here is a b b a and a beautiful song that uses this rhyme scheme is Sweet Baby James by James Taylor there is a young cowboy he lives on the Range his horse and his cattle there is only companion he works in the saddle and sleeps in the canyon waiting for summer his pastures to change so now here's an alternative version of that verse where we are stabilizing the rhyme scheme and turning it into an a b a b section so this is really using one of the rhyme cliches that we talked about earlier exactly okay there is a young cowboy he lives on the rain foreign [Music] one of the reasons I don't like it is probably because it's unfamiliar but I do think that it is also about how good the original feels how right it feels how that choice of ABBA has a perfect relationship with what the lyric is actually about and if we look at the lyrics he's creating a picture of a character who is in solitude who wants things to be different who's waiting for the season to turn so that he can find connection and community and not be so alone and that sense of solitude and yearning is so beautifully brought out by the a b b a pattern it's unbalanced and unresolved and when we turn it into that balanced section the a b a b rhyme scheme it just feels way too stable and way too resolved for a character and an emotion that has so much yearning and so much instability inside of it as we start to collect more rhyme schemes to use you know once we we break away from the rhyme cliches we're going to start having all of these different options to choose from it's a very reasonable question to have how do I choose which rhyme scheme is appropriate for my song or for this section of the song and I think what caps just talked through there with James Taylor it's a beautiful demonstration of choosing the rhyme scheme that is serving The Narrative or serving the mood or the feeling of the song and you hear that longing and that yearning in the lyrics it makes perfect sense to take that unstable feeling in the lyrics and serve them with the appropriate rhyme scheme that that is unstable that is unbalanced the third rhyme scheme we want to focus on we're calling last line X and we're going to look at a couple of examples with this one the first being Jeff Buckley's lover you should have come over so we hear Jeff Buckley building momentum with this chorus and he does it with a sequence of three a Rhymes I'll wait for you and I'll burn will I ever see your sweet return oh will I ever learn so we have those three in a row and what's beautiful about that is I think it builds that sense of anticipation that we've been talking about it builds a real you know heightened sense of where is this going where where is this going to resolve or how is it going to resolve and then he hits us with two lines that are essentially unrign from anything else oh lover you should have come over it's not too late using rhyme scheme to create an expectation and then break that expectation it feels like a it is too late it feels like you know he he's not meaning what he actually says there's some irony in the lyrics but also it creates this kind of language that you would expect to hear someone use on the phone if they were just calling a lover or calling a friend and so this teaches us I think a really valuable thing about rhyme scheme when you are using rhyme scheme you are deliberately packaging your lyrics and your language to be delivered to the ear in a particular way you're seeking an effect and that in itself you know tells the audience well this is a song I'm hearing a song that's been carefully put together and carefully structured when you use unrimed lines as a contrast to those rhyme lines you switch to this very conversational everyday language kind of mode and it's a beautiful effect especially when following the repetition of those three lines in in a row we can also see that really clearly in the sting and the police song Every Breath You Take so that last line I'll be watching you is a refrain line which means it's a line that repeats in all of the verse sections but that refrain line is unrimed and it's actually the fact that it's unrimed that draws an extra Spotlight around it but it happens after this sequence this consecutive sequence of really tight Rhymes right and it really leaves us hanging it leaves us dangling in in a place of uncertainty in a way and that's the beauty of it it's unresolved it's unstable and in these examples it really serves the narrative or the lyrical message of the song [Music] cry out for the human pyramid but we don't like it that loud you and I are the backstage kids so come over here and Light Me Up we've created this video using selected scenes and highlights from our brand new online course the five most powerful songwriting exercises revealed a course that guides you practically and in great detail through five songwriting exercises that have had a profound effect on both Cappy and I and have shaped us as professional songwriters over the years trust us these exercises will help you write better songs so if you're interested check out the udemy link below [Music]

Channel: How To Write Songs

Views: 12,835

Keywords: how to write songs, how to write a song, songwriting, writing songs, how to write great songs, best songwriting tips, rhyming, best rhyme schemes, rhyme schemes, rhyming like a pro, lyric writing, pro songwriting tips

Id: UIlINJP9t_s

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2023