Rhymes Can Make or Break Your Song.

Rhymes speak directly to the listener. They affect how people hear and respond to your song and you as a songwriter. Control these words and you help the listener hear what you want them to hear.

They are an essential and expected part of every song. Whether or not the listener knows it they are expecting to here them. If they don't, it can make them less committed to the song. They may not know why the song doesn't feel right but they may loose interest in your song. Not a situation you want.

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Luckily it is not hard to learn how to listen to the sound of the word and know what other words will work. How's that you say?

Basically his system relies on the phonetic sound of the word and where it is produced in your mouth to match other word sounds produced in the same part of the mouth. To the ear it sounds the same even though the spelling may vary greatly.

Pat's techniques also break open rhyming dictionaries for you. I use his system to search words on MasterWriter songwriting software.

A dictionary like the New Comprehensive American Rhyming Dictionary is a must to own.

There are other techniques like perfect, additive, subtractive, assonance, consonance and internal rhyming. Here is a complete list with examples of their names. Some are used much more than others so check them out. You might be surprised at how many different kinds exist.

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You can use these techniques to control your song and what the listener hears. The order that you place similar sounding words at the ends of lines in a song is called the rhyme-scheme.

You can complete a thought or leave it unresolved. People like/need to feel resolve in a song. You're a songwriter, your job is to make them feel exactly what you want them to feel.

The issue of your listener feeling resolution to music, thoughts, words and emotions is tied into this topic as well as many other aspects of your song. These are all issues you can consciously try to control.

One more thing, avoid using cliches or predictable words in your song. There are words that are paired too often. Avoid them at all costs. With Pat's technique you avoid using them. Here's a cliche site with examples