To rhyme or not to rhyme?

[icystorm]

To rhyme or not to rhyme? That is the question! 😂🤣 When writing lyrics, it's always helpful to remember the different types of useful rhymes in songs, including true rhymes, near-rhymes (aka slant rhymes), consonance, assonance, and para-rhymes. And sometimes, if it works, throw caution to the wind and defiantly skip rhyming.



Sites likes WordHippo, RhymeZone, B-Rhymes, Datamuse, Poetry Assessor, and RhymeBrain are great for looking up rhymes of the various types. Alternatively, ChatGPT is great for simply asking, "Show me a list of n examples in each of the five types of rhymes predicated on the word "[insert your word here]."

Cheers,
Joseph

[Rightly]

rhyming is often dependent on the dialect or accent
often my favorite part of a narration is when the rhyme is broken
has to be done for a reason though

but yes, Ill agree with your comment that it's good to know the types of rhymes
Whatever helps the singer or writer understand and sensitize to available choices

[icystorm]

rhyming is often dependent on the dialect or accent
often my favorite part of a narration is when the rhyme is broken
has to be done for a reason though

but yes, Ill agree with your comment that it's good to know the types of rhymes
Whatever helps the singer or writer understand and sensitize to available choices

Yes, that's right. There are also many words that sound good together, despite not rhyming in the five primary ways. As you suggested, it depends on the dialect or accent.

In addition to the five types of rhymes, there are also three sonic devices, which are basically pleasing sound blends without rhyme. Those include:

Tonal Harmony: Words feel musically balanced together.
Vocalic Resonance: Vowel sounds echo each other.
Euphony: Pleasing overall sound flow.

People often claim the word 'purple' is not possible to use as a rhyme. There are other examples, too.

Yet words like "circle," "hurdle," "turtle," and "verbal" can often creatively work with "purple".

Or something like:

She wore a dark cape — tinted black, almost purple
She cast her cruel spell — her wicked curse was hurtful

Cheers,
Joseph

[snargleplax]

Increasingly, I see rhyme as analogous to harmonic tension. The opening of a rhyming structure creates a step away from stability, like moving off of the tonic. The ear expects that rhyme to eventually resolve, just as a chord progression would.

If the resolution comes in too quick and simple a manner, without a meaningful journey, that's often unsatisfying -- whether in the form of a I-V-I progression, or an AABB rhyme structure. There are excellent songs with both of these, and simplicity can serve us, but mostly it's a hazard and these are exceptions that prove the rule.

Toward the other extreme, a journey without discernible structure is difficult to follow, and the listener's interest may fall away. Subverting expectations can be valuable to avoid trite predictability, focus attention on important parts, create a richer texture of tension, etc. But if it gets to the point of just meandering along at random, we lose the sense of having any kind of story to follow.

[idunno]

Increasingly, I see rhyme as analogous to harmonic tension. The opening of a rhyming structure creates a step away from stability, like moving off of the tonic. The ear expects that rhyme to eventually resolve, just as a chord progression would.

If the resolution comes in too quick and simple a manner, without a meaningful journey, that's often unsatisfying -- whether in the form of a I-V-I progression, or an AABB rhyme structure. There are excellent songs with both of these, and simplicity can serve us, but mostly it's a hazard and these are exceptions that prove the rule.

Toward the other extreme, a journey without discernible structure is difficult to follow, and the listener's interest may fall away. Subverting expectations can be valuable to avoid trite predictability, focus attention on important parts, create a richer texture of tension, etc. But if it gets to the point of just meandering along at random, we lose the sense of having any kind of story to follow.

There's much to contemplate here. Rhyme, to my sense of music, is to resolve music itself. Rhyme is the meter, the harmony, and the structure of music. Basically stated, it goes far to sort the score itself. All too often it assumes a necessity to its use exclusively through conventions.

Greensleeves': "Alas my love you do me wrong to cast me off so discourteously, When I have loved you so long delighting in your company". This verse structure is throughout a song so old its author is lost to antiquity. "Discourteously" and "company" resolve the verse strictly by the use of the letter "Y", which is an artful sampling of alliteration.

Then there are extreme examples of rhyme intended to resolve a piece for the sake of rhyme and poetic expression. The following is a sampling of that -

Of Ancient Drums

I heard it said that a man was dead and no one knew just why
The news was old when I was told with the sun low in the sky
Through a sleepless night and dawning light I searched for words to say   
I knew him well but couldn't tell how I took the news that day

And I heard the ancient drums begin to play.

It is, almost in and of itself, a piece of music sans score. It's the power beneath the runes of the ancients when musical instruments were rare and the oral tradition strong. It gave strength to memory. Over time the musical instrument slowly supplanted much of the power and art form of the spoken word and such use in communication diminished. The chorus of merchants selling wares in an open air market place was steeped in that tradition and still is in the reaches of our world.