Writing Better Lyrics, Chapter 3, building worksheets & rhyming

[cool_E]

First let me say that I believe Pat goes through

this process to help one learn to search and think

and he doesn't expect or advocate this process

as the way to write every song. I did this once

already and can say that going through the

process of building a worksheet did provide

a lot of potential ideas.

 

---------------------

In chapter 3 Pat does 2 things:

 

1. describes the process of building a worsheet

as a brainstorming tool for a lyric

 

2. describes many types of rhymes.

 

Here are the steps to build a worksheet

1. Focus your lyric idea as clearly as you can

You can start several ways but the key is to

focus the idea. Writing from an emotion or

even simply a title are OK.

 

2a. Make a list of words that express your idea

Pat goes through an illustrative example.

Pat also suggests the use of a good thesaurus,

"one set up to Roget's plan according to the flow

of ideas." Follow trails through the thesaurus

and generate a long list of words that express

interseting ideas that could be used in your

lyric.

 

2b. Cut the list down to 10 or 12 words.

Don't be afraid to change later.

Here are some guidelines to use when cutting:

- if you are working with a title be sure

to include words that contain it's key vowel

sound

- most of your words should end in a stressed

syllable

- put any interesting words that duplicate the

vowel sound of a word in your list next to that

word.

 

3. Look up each word in your rhyming dictionary

Be sure to use perfect and imperfect rhymes.

 

Pat describes rhyme types here

 

Perfect rhyme

- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same

- the consonant sounds after the vowels are

the same

- the sounds before the vowels are different

(cat, hat)

 

Family rhyme

- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same

- the consonant sounds after the vowels belong

to the same phonetic family

- the sounds before the vowels are different

 

phonetic families:

plosives, fricatives, nasals

plosives & fricatives have both voiced and

unvoiced.

(buy the book!)

 

(rub, thud or love, buzz)

 

 

Additive rhyme

- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same

- one of the syllables adds extra consonants

after the vowel

- the sounds before the vowel are different

(free, treat)

 

Subtractive rhyme

- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same

- one of the syllables adds extra consonants

after the vowel

- the sounds before the vowel are different

(treat, free)

 

Assonance rhyme

- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same

- the consonants after the vowel sounds are

unrelated

- the sounds before the vowel are different

(satisfied, crime)

 

-------------------

OK, here's your job...

 

Pick a title or song idea then build a worksheet.

It would be helpful to others to post the worksheet

here. If you actually get some lyric ideas out

of the process post them as well!

[cool_E]

Worksheet for

[Sonic Boy]

Once again thanks for posting these lessons, they are

really interesting.

 

Could you tell me if I can find a good online thesaurus

and/or rhyming dictionary? (for english of course)

 

thanks

[cool_E]

don't know about an on-line thesaurus, for this exercise

I used the one in MS Word. I did find a couple of on-line

rhyming dicsionaries. I posted links to them in another

thread on this forum. I actually used the on-line rhyming

dictionary to do that worksheet.

 

I recently bought a good thesaurus & rhyming dictionary

(~$30 total). I think they will be of some use.

[songbreed]

after looking at your post.... i become very interested in pat's book

i've search all over the internet to find it but i don't have the card to buy it... would you mind give a download link.... please....

[Dean Roddey]

I dunno. Not to dis anyone who'se trying to help others, and if something works for you, it works and that's that. But I think this is way over-thinking it :-) It's all about the story and the emotion. It doesn't even have to rhyme particularly much of the time. I mean, and maybe I'm overstepping my boundaries here and will stand corrected, but does anyone know of even one single great rock/pop song was ever written via this mechanistic a system? The really good stuff has more to do with just doing self-psychiatry to music :-)

[kurdy]

 

I dunno. Not to dis anyone who'se trying to help others, and if something works for you, it works and that's that. But I think this is way over-thinking it :-) It's all about the story and the emotion. It doesn't even have to rhyme particularly much of the time. I mean, and maybe I'm overstepping my boundaries here and will stand corrected, but does anyone know of even one single great rock/pop song was ever written via this mechanistic a system? The really good stuff has more to do with just doing self-psychiatry to music :-)

 

 

I actually own this book, and though I appreciate what the author is trying to get at, and find his methods quite intriguing, I agree some of it is overkill. Much of the work this author suggests is necessary for preparing to write a song could be spent actually writing a song. It reminds me of a lot of self-improvement books which say "You too can achieve your dreams--all you need to do are pages and pages of these written essays and exercises". "What Color Is Your Parachute" comes to mind as one such example.

 

Part of the reason for the book's complexity is that the author, Pat Pattison, is (or was) a Berklee professor, so many of the exercises are tailored to a classroom setting, especially some of the "group" exercises. The methods may be useful, but they do seem to be less practical outside of a classroom.

 

One of my bandmates majored in Songwriting at Berklee, so I imagine she may have been one of the author's students, or at least been taught using his methods. She wrote one song that all her professors praised for being exemplary songwriting. That was over a decade ago, and she hasn't written a song since. She says it's because she feels she can never again measure up to that song. So yeah, even though these methods are meant to be helpful, I think they have the potential to become paralyzing too. There's definitely a danger in overthinking things.

 

I think the book is great reading material with some excelent info on what makes a good lyric, and I certainly recommend it for that reason. However, I think one should judge for themselves whether or not it's necessary to do the exercises.