|
Lyric Construction Basics
A quick primer in how lyrics fit together. They are much like song construction. There are basic building blocks that can be arranged to make complex rhyming patterns.
There are 7 types of rhymes. All are concerned with the last word in each line except one which is known as an internal rhyme. All that means the rhyming word is not the last word in a line.
Most of the types are just common sense so your ear can tell what words work and what don't. To keep things simple I will address the two most common. Perfect rhyme and near or imperfect rhyme. They almost explain themselves with examples.
Perfect Rhyme using a made up country western verse.
When I opened the door,
I reached for the floor,
As the pot roast flew past my head,
I yelled it was only eight beers,
She screamed through her tears,
I love you, but oh your so dead.
Chorus
She's burning and now I"m cooked,
I was just as bad as she thought I looked,
Etc.
You get the idea. The words rhyme perfectly. The Rhyming scheme is a,a,b,c,c,b. by the way. More on that later.
Near or imperfect lyrics
Romeo and Juliette
I would give you all my love,
In exchange for just one hug,
I would gladly die,
For one day with you as my bride.
See how the words are near rhymes.
Now for the most common rhyming patterns. As you saw above in the first set of lyrics, construction is similar to song construction except you use lower case letters to keep track of things.
The most basic and most common pattern is a,b,a,b.. First and third line rhyme, second and fourth line rhyme.
Another common pattern is a,a,b,b,. example door-floor and light-sight.
This pattern breaks up the rhyming much like a bridge. It helps keep the lines interesting a,a,b,a. example floor, door, brick, more.
The above are how you can build your lyrics. You can get quite complex with many lines with different patterns but, remember they are patterns, nor random lines. You could have a pattern like this.a,a,a,a or a,b,c,b or at the other end of the scale a,b,a,c,d,e,d,c. You can see the last one covers 2 verses, the last line in each having the rhyming word.
So you say but, I don't want to rhyme. Well you don't have to. In fact it is becoming popular not to rhyme as much. This is an important point. I am not saying scramble all the rhyming schemes into one big alphabet soup. With a predominantly non rhyming lines, you would use minimal rhyming to underline or make more noticeable the lines you wanted to stand out. In this case you are not so much looking for a rhyme as you are making a statement.
There is a lot more depth to this subject of course but, this should give you enough info to make writing lyrics easier. I have gleaned this stuff from various books out there but, take full responsibility for the lyrics.
it took me forever to come up with even those simple lyrics which is why I don't write lyrics too much. I hope this helps.
Last edited by allthumbs : July 16th, 2006 at 11:42 PM.
|