Something for the guitar playing (want-to-be) singer-songwriter

[Mbroady]

Something for the guitar playing (want-to-be) singer-songwriter

…or just a the lyricists in the crowd

Part one
https://americansongwriter.com/the-a...-rhyme-part-i/

Do you wirte songs?

[Quebec Picker]

Cool. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to part 2 tomorrow!

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by Quebec Picker

Cool. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to part 2 tomorrow!

Yeah ... Dylan'll end a line with half a word and start the
next line with the other half, ending the second line with
a word that rhymes with the half word at the end of the
first line...

Or, he can just fall over dead and rhyme moon with spoon...

-Mike

[DukeX]

An interesting read, thanks for sharing!

[Pitar]

The rhyming scheme is a form of poetry that's been tortured by songwriters since time immemorial. Try writing a song that does not rhyme in words but rather rhymes in either melody or dynamics. The article examples a few and it really isn't hard. Think of telling a story and sing it as such.

I think the ultimate measure of a song writers prowess is the art of phrasing lyrics and music in a (listenable) through-composed manner. Neither the words/lyrics nor the music repeats, and certainly no artificiality like rhyming can be heard in it. It's composed all the way through, meaning simply that nothing is allowed to repeat. This would literally eschew all that has been written to date.

Gordon Lightfoot, in particular, is a repetition-based writer. All his songs drone on and on in a turnstile manner looping the melody and lyrical phrasings back into our ears like a jump rope to our feet, but his melodies and word-craft are attractive earning him a kitchen pass (and a pretty good living). Dylan is much the same with regard to melody.

The attraction for me to guitar is to remain engaged in a discovery mode for all that has not gone before us yet. We have the familiar and often gauge our own playing on how well we can copy it with the skills we've developed, aka showcasing, but is that our end game? Is copying/covering Paul Simon's The Boxer a measure of the spirit in which we've taken up guitar playing? Not for me.

I came to the guitar because I wanted to play the instrument itself. I was attracted to the sound of the classical guitar but not so much to the sound of the classical music rendered on it. I thought that most of it was pretty stuffy, repetitive and even boring. But, when Mason Williams brought us Classical Gas in 1968 his message to me was that the classical guitar was yet to be fully explored.

Writing lyrical messages in phrasings is the work of the poet and an undertaking that never elevated the worth of the guitar over its own self-worth as a musical instrument. But, the art of the song has reversed that and subordinated it as such. By that rationale, any song is a good song because its art. I'm content to disagree with that.

[Straw]

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing! I only wish they had chosen not to use the term "false" rhyme. In the poetry world, these rhymes are variously called approximate, or slant, or assonance. Since Lord Byron--that is to say, for over two hundred years--poets in English have been working outside of perfect rhymes because the language is inherently rhyme poor--compared to, say, Italian. These alternate kinds of rhyme provided the desired chime without repeating the same old cliches.
As a side note: In the world of contemporary poetry, most American poets studiously avoid rhyming since it seems so traditional. Ironically, one would be hard pressed to find a significant body of non-rhyming lyrics in modern genres like blues, rock, country, rap, and pop.

[jaymarsch]

I had just seen this in the magazine but glanced at it as I have not had time to dig into it. Rhyme is certainly an important component of songwriting. For me, and I consider myself a continual beginner when it comes to songwriting as it takes time and practice to write a good song, I find writing song lyrics different from writing poetry. And that difference is twofold - one, a song has to be about the music! And - two, a song is designed from the outset to live in the air and not on the page. It is caught first by the ears and not the eyes.

As far as rhyming goes, whether you choose perfect rhymes or near rhymes or no rhyme can be dependent on the emotional content of the song. Pat Pattison has written extensively about this.

The only thing more satisfying to me than hearing a song that seamlessly works on all levels, evoking both emotion and thought and has my body responding to the rhythm, is my being able to write such a song. A worthwhile and a lifelong pursuit!

I especially admire singer songwriters who maximize the use of their guitar as an accompaniment tool in a tasteful and musical way. John Renbourn, Cliff Eberhardt, Patti Larkin and Martin Simpson are a few that come to mind off the top of my head.

Best,
Jayne

[rmoretti49]

I very much liked the remarks of Jackson Browne in this article. Much of modern popular music, it seems to me, depends upon rhyme and far less on meaning. The rhyme and the music are capable by themselves of strongly imprinting upon memory. Many best selling songs are like this, with not much meaning in them. But I don't find much gratification in trying to write that way.