Graham English

Perfect Rhyme has three characteristics:

• The rhyming syllables have the same vowel sounds
• The consonant sounds after the vowel (if any) have the same sounds
• The rhyming syllables begin differently

A good substitute for Perfect Rhyme is Family Rhyme:

• The rhyming syllables have the same vowel sounds
• The consonant sounds after the vowel are phonetically related
• The rhyming syllables begin differently

In Family Rhyme, there are three phonetic families:

• Plosives: b, d, g, p, t, k
• Fricatives: v, TH, z, zh, j, f, th, s, sh, ch
• Nasals: m, n, ng

You can substitute members of the same family: cut/luck, rich/wish, fun/sung. Use this chart to help you find family rhymes:

In the future I’ll talk about how to use rhyme to control the pace and flow of your lyrics, use rhyme to balance and unbalance your verses, and a lot more. Remember that rhyme is a powerful songwriting tool to help you say what you mean.

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Tags: family rhyme, lyric writing, perfect rhyme, rhyme, Songwriting, writing lyrics

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Music Education, Prose. You can leave a comment if you follow my Living Room Rules. If not, you can leave a trackback from your own site.