I'd love to hear your working methods on compiling potential rhymes. I'm not so interested in why you feel someone else's method isn't very good, or the "right way", I'm more interested in how you do it. Do you use a rhyming dictionary? Do you prefer to use the pool of rhymes that come to you naturally? Do you have a mental only alphabetical approach?
For me... I always go for the natural approach initially. Sort of like the limerick game I used to play with me ol' Scot Grandpa Fred. What comes to mind first, let it happen. Relax and let the muse speak. Sometimes there's a lot there. This is the purge stage where I don't slow down for any sort of reference material. This is the "tap the old memory banks and personal experience library" phase. Au naturel. But I don't stop here...
Then... if and when I get stuck, I go to a rhyming dictionary. The online RhymeZone. http://www.rhymezone.com/
It's not bad in that it does include words that aren't necessarily spelled the same as the source word but still rhyme. A lot won't do this. For "wart" I get escort and court among lots of other entries.
Then, after I've compiled a list of potential rhymes based on how they fit into the current context of the song, I see what sort of line might pop out at me from the potential rhymes. Sometimes the perfect line just jumps out. Going back and forth between the written verse with a blank spot, and the list of possible and pertinent rhymes, I'll let my mind do its thing again, au naturel.
Purge, refine, purge, refine. Back and forth between research and inspiration. Which brings me to... my latest reference book find. I absolutely LOVE this rhyming dictionary.
Sue Young's the New Comprehensive American Rhyming Dictionary
http://www.amazon.com/New-Comprehensive-American-R
![9781439505311[1].jpg](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/9903i071CA646E8AC80E3/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1 "9781439505311[1].jpg")
Sue Young is a linguist who set out to write an American pronunciation rhymer. This is not thrown together. And it's not stuffy. It includes slang, curse, etc. A rapper's treasure chest. And it is comprehensive.
It is among the recommended books in Jimmy Webb's Tunesmith. I finally got around to ordering it after a few years of thinking about and it came yesterday. WOW. What a unique rhyming dictionary. You don't look up words, you look up sounds. Ascertain the stressed vowel sound of a word, and go fishing.
In Sue Young's world of rhyming, genitalia rhymes with never fail ya. This is a seriously excellent resource for those that find reference books of this sort to their liking. Anyway...
HOW DO YOU DO IT?
Originally Posted by Lee Knight
Lee Knight wrote:
rhino55 wrote:
I just google rhymes with ??????
They'll usually be some yahoo answers and a few rhyming sites will pop up
Once you get a list of rhymes, where's you mind at? At this point... are you compiling a list of potentials? Are you perusing for the one right then and there? Are you hoping a rhyme might suggest a line or is that method not kosher with your style and you have to have the line first and find a rhyme that's going to work for that line?
What's your method once you hit "GO FIND RHYMES"?
I don't come up with a list. I'm usually looking for the right one then and there. Sometimes a rhyme will suggest a line.
Song songs need tight, accurate rhymes. When the verses are short especially. Or if I want something amusing - just the fact that something rhymes and fits at the same time carries in itself a sort of charming irony.
Other material, more discursive stuff, more prosey or longer-lined, I can loosen up. Maybe just rhyme with one couplet at the end of a bunch of lines. Partial rhymes do bug me, 'tho - they just seem like the proverbial square peg in the round hole all too often to me - a cheap, lazy option. But only if they stick out because most of the rhymes are tight otherwise. An entire song of mostly near-rhymes is kind of like a variety of alliteration - that doesn't bother me at all.
I do resort to RhymeZone, too. But all too often the direct chase for a rhyme is a momentum killer and the rhyme eludes me the harder I chase it.
I don't start with rhymes I don't think (although I don't spend much time dissecting the way my head works when composing.) If I don't have a rhyme, my first move is to change the idea or replace a line, then run through a few attempts in my head until a rhyme and an idea appear together - ka-ching!
I read a fair amount of literary poetry, and one thing I do before I tie into a stanza is quickly scan the ends of the lines so the rhymes sound in my head before I actually read them in sequential context. This is not something anyone taught me - I just came up with it naturally and it makes a huge difference for me scansion-wise.
I suspect that this 30-year reading habit of mine has helped me sock away a lot of rhymes like so many seeds buried just under the topsoil, ready to spring up under the sun and showers of some random inspiration. At least that's the hope....
I have tried a more structured approach - listing a bunch of rhymes first, making a pool, trying to work up the ones that felt like the best ones into lines. But that usually results in a wad of scribbled-up paper in the trash and a strong desire for a drink or a pint of ice cream. 
Not so good.
nat whilk ii
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