Learning to rhyme can allow you to add vibrancy and beauty to songs and poetry. But how do you find other rhymes besides "cat" and "hat"? Do any words rhyme with "orange"? How do you make a rhyming word list into a song, or sonnet? You can learn to tackle this rhyming task with wikiHow's tips for poetry, country songs, pop songs, or raps. Read Step 1 for more information.
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Method 1 of 4: Good Rhymes
Step 1. Think about all the possible rhymes before deciding on one
Change the word prefix using each letter in the alphabet. For example, if you need to search for a word that rhymes with " fog," start with the letter A and say " aog, bog, cog, dog, eog, … zog," until you reach the letter Z. Write down each valid word, such as " bog, " " cog," and " dog ", then select only the most interesting. If one doesn't work, change the first line to match the poem or song.
When spelling individual letters, inserting an R or L into short words can often create other words. So if you search for a word that rhymes with " cat ", you can find both " bat " and " brat "; "fat" as well as "flat" and "frat". This is a special rhyming trick
Step 2. Put rhymes in longer words
Use other multi-letter prefixes you know to build more complex words to rhyme. The first letters don't always work. For example, " frog " and " clog " are real words that rhyme with " bog ". Try words with multiple syllables like "bullfrog" or "epilogue."
Step 3. Choose only appropriate words
If none of the words work well, consider changing the keyword to a synonym for the word, or leaving the rhyming scheme on a line or two. For example, you can replace the word " mist " with " fog," but use only rhymes that will make the poem or song better, and never rhyme just because you want to.
Step 4. Use assonance rhymes
Perfect rhyme "sounds" right to our ears because of its identical combination of vowels and consonants. "Moon" and "spoon" are perfect rhymes because of their long "o" and "n" sound. Assonance rhymes are rhymes where vowels or consonants are similar, creating a rhyming echo, and giving you a wide variety of possibilities.
"Moon" can be thought of as rhyming with "on" or "schooner" or "groom" or even "gong". Assonance rhyme offers complexity and surprise to a perfectly ordered series of rhymes
Step 5. Open the rhyme dictionary
Investing by buying a rhyme dictionary to be used as a reference is worth the benefits. Using a rhyme dictionary does not include cheating, just like using a thesaurus when writing. Learning good rhymes will also build your vocabulary, giving you a collection of words that you can use to create songs, poems, or other free-form works.
Step 6. Always use rhymes to advance the work
Rhyming is a technique that writers and musicians can use in their compositions to emphasize words and images and unravel surprising and complex poetry. Use rhyme to add a touch of color and texture to your work, but not as an excuse to create it. If something needs to rhyme, use it well. If not, just let it be.
Method 2 of 4: Rhymes in Poetry
Step 1. Write freely
When you're faced with a blank sheet of paper and want to fill it with poetry, it's best to avoid rhyming altogether in the initial draft. Trying to start with rhyme will most likely end in a flat cat-hat-bat rhyme and bad poetry. Instead, write a verse or journal freely and see what it says. What do you want to say? Start with a line or picture that impresses you and work your way up to the raw material that you'll build into a more structured, formal rhyming poem.
Step 2. Locate the guide bar
After writing for a while, turn over your sheet of paper, or open a new word processing document. Take your favorite line from the freewriting and write it at the top of the page. What impresses you about this? What's good about it? Use this as a guide for writing poetry. Explore the basis of the argument or description that the line contains.
Oftentimes, freewriting will end with a fairly good line that you may want to use for the beginning. Look at the last few sentences for the guide lines
Step 3. Consider appropriate forms of poetry
If you want to write formal poetry, understand the common rhyming forms and their uses to choose the one that will work best for the theme of your poem.
- Couplets, or heroic couplets, represent all poetry that rhymes every two lines. Used by poets from Milton to Frederick Seidel, couplets can provide an epic and gravitational sensation.
- Poems featuring a quaternary, or four-line stanza, can rhyme with an alternating basic rhyme scheme (ABAB) or another scheme. Ballads and songs are traditionally written in quatrains, making them a good form of storytelling or musical storytelling.
- In villanelle, the entire line from the first stanza is repeated from one three-line stanza to the next, with the first and last lines in the stanza rhyming, giving the poem an inescapable sensation, as if you couldn't escape the poem.
- A sonnet is a 14-line poem that has a semi-complicated, prearranged rhyme scheme, with about 10 syllables or five beats per line. Most sonnets written in English are generally Petrarch (ABBA) or Shakespeare (ABAB) sonnets, with rhyming couplets for the last two lines). Sonnets generally relate to a rhetorical theme or "argument", highlighting the surprise in the poem after the eighth line.
Step 4. Use rhyme to create surprise and add complexity to the poem
Your rhymes should help poetry, and not vice versa, poetry should help rhyme. Never rhyme just because you feel you have to, or start a poem hoping to rhyme. This will result in the type of forced "cat-hat-bat" rhyme that will spoil rather than add beauty to the poem.
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Paul Muldoon, an Irish poet, has a surprising style of rhyme. His poem "The Old Country" is the culmination of a sonnet featuring a deft and surprising rhyme:
Every runnel was a Rubicon / and every annual a hardy annual / applying itself like linen to a lawn. / Every glove compartment held a manual
Step 5. Read contemporary poetry for inspiration
Writing contemporary poetry that rhymes well is difficult if you are only familiar with Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Dr. Seuss. There's no reason to keep Twitter, Frosted Flakes, and Lil Wayne out of your poetry just because the lines are full of "thou." Look for contemporary poets who rhyme in a fresh yet traditional way:
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Try to find out about Michael Robbins, who in his beautiful poem “Alien vs. Predator,” creates a series of crazy, associative musical rhymes out of a shopping mall aisle:
He's a space tree / making a ski and a little foam chiropractor. / I set the controls, I pioneer / the seeding of the ionosphere. / I translate the Bible into velociraptor
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Read Ange Mlinko, a contemporary poet skilled enough to rhyme "potato" with "tattoo" to end his poem "The Grind":
spooning up Aphrodite / to Greek porticoes, and our potatoes, / and plain living which might be / shaken by infinitesimal tattoos
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"Casualty" by Seamus Heaney manages to capture the essence of everyday life, is narrative, musical and incredibly easy to read. He is a good poet, who makes rhyme seem easy:
And raise a weathered thumb / Towards the high shelf, / Calling another rum / And blackcurrant, without / Having to raise his voice
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David Trinidad--a poet who often wrote about pop culture in the 1960s--shows his mastery of the villanelle form with his humorous and moving poem "Chatty Cathy Villanelle":
Our flag is red, white and blue. / Let's make believe you're Mommy. / When you grow up, what will you do?
Method 3 of 4: Rhyming in Songwriting
Step 1. Write down the melody first
It is very difficult to assign a pre-arranged rhyme and words to the melody that follows. Some songwriters find it easier to compose a melody and then compose a series of lyrics that match the rhythm and structure of the song.
- Many songwriters think that syllable singing or nonsensical whistling can help set a melody or build basic shapes that can be filled with words.
- Choose the technique that works best for your poetry creation process. Bob Dylan, considered by some to be the best songwriter ever, often wrote the lyrics first. Try.
Step 2. Learn to "change" phrases
A popular and important technique in country music, good songs can often be "turned" into phrases, or use lines to describe more than one meaning throughout the song, if used at different times.
In Kacey Musgraves' song "Blowing Smoke," the phrase "blowing smoke" is used at different points to refer to a waitress smoking on her break, as well as bragging about quitting one day, both from work and from smoking. This is an effective technique that changes meaning but not words
Step 3. Use as few words as possible
Avoid filling lines with words, making your song a difficult tongue twister to sing. When composing a song, use words wisely, eliminating more words than pouring in. Simple, fast rhymes can be much more effective in a song than "poetic" words.
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In "The Butcher," Leonard Cohen makes a powerful short rhyme about drug use:
I found a silver needle. I put it into my arm. / It did some good, did some harm
Step 4. Try automatic shapes
Novelist and Beat writer William Burroughs pioneered a way of writing that involved cutting out rhyming words and phrases, then discarding them. Try doing the same thing and removing random phrases to knit a rug of uniqueness in your song. Music is very open to this kind of writing.
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The Rolling Stones used this technique for their song "Casino Boogie":
One last cycle, thrill freak Uncle Sam / Pause for business, so you'll understand
Method 4 of 4: Rhymes in Hip-Hop Songs
Step 1. Listen to the beat and find your own flow
Spend a lot of time with the rhythm you want to rap, internalizing the sound and rhythm, to figure out the flow of your voice before starting to think about the lyrics. Like writing the melody in a traditional song first, you first need to find a good flow in the rap song.
- Some rappers will use a similar "nonsense word" technique, which is to rhythmically spill sounds without saying the real word. Try recording yourself doing this, even if it sounds silly, because the good parts may come out of nowhere.
- Good rap emphasizes flow as well as comfortable rhymes. Staying on beat is better than losing the beat and trying to force complicated awkward rhymes into the structure of the song.
Step 2. Do a freestyle
Like freewriting in poetry, trying freestyle is a good way to get started and find a starting line in songwriting. Or, if you're Riff Raff, just record your freestyle and think of it as a song.
Step 3. Learn and take advantage of enjambment
There's no rule that a rhyme needs to appear at the end of each line, especially in hip-hop, or that a word that rhymes needs to be the end of a sentence. Vary the rhyme placement. Glue rhymes internally and skip rhymes completely to add variety to the sound flow. You don't have to rhyme at the end of each line to rap well.
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In the song "Duel of the Iron Mic," GZA creates powerful breaks in the lines of the song, using well-placed breaks in the beat to surprise us:
I ain't particular, I bang like vehicular / homicides, on July 4th in Bed-Stuy
Step 4. Listen to hip-hop rhyming experts for inspiration
Familiarize yourself with the best, by listening to a wide variety of rhymes to start learning the art. Listen:
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Nas, who plunged into this world as a teenager with his classic album Illmatic, which features the following lines:
It drops deep as it does in my breath / I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
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Eminem, whose intricately well-crafted rhymes make him the bona fide king of rap:
I'm Slim, the Shady is really a fake alias / to save me with in case I get chased by space aliens
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Rakim, one of the most influential MCs in hip-hop:
Even if it's jazz or the quiet storm / I hook a beat up, convert it into hip-hop form
Tips
- Pay attention to the number of syllables in each line. You certainly don't want to have lines with more syllables than other lines.
- Take a poetry or song writing class.
- You can buy a rhyme dictionary at a bookstore, which will help you a lot with rhyming, or use an online dictionary.
- Ask friends and family for help.
- Try not to make words that have rare syllable endings, you'll have a hard time finding the rhyme.
