Hey Pat and Ian,

Wow! That's some discussion you boys are having. Never be concerned about hijacking my thread. The more, the merrier I always say

Here's my tuppence worth... (I'm not sure if that expression means anything in the US.)

Rhyme in songs (and poems, I guess) serves a number of functions. Amongst other things, lyric-rhyme can: highlight important ideas; lead a listener across the terrain of the song; create emotion; accelerate or decelerate lyric motion (which also impacts on the emotion of the lyric).

To my ears, perfect rhyme has an unparalleled sense of completion about it. When a perfect rhyme occurs, my ears hear the end of a lyric thought. This is Pat Pattison's school of thinking and one that I subscribe to. When a rhyme moves further away from perfect ryhme, the sense of completion is reduced. This can be used very effectively to create additional emotion (because it leaves the listener a little bit up in the air). I guess it's a bit like using a minor chord in a major key or maybe adding a 6 or 9 to a major chord (that is, the effect of the chord is still heard but it's resolution is less steadfast).

Perfect rhyme is one of the tools that the genre of musical theater often employs. Rodgers and Hammerstein works are good examples of this. To my way of thinking, the name "perfect rhyme" is unfortunate because it suggests that it is the "best" rhyme. This is not the case. It's simply the name of a type of rhyme. In my head, I compare perfect rhyme in lyrics to perfect fifths in music. A perfect fifth is not the "best" fifth, it's simply the name of one of a family of fifths and all types of fifth have their place in musical compositions.

In his updated book, 2nd edition, Pattison uses the song "Can't Be Really Gone" by Gary Burr and recorded by Tim McGraw as a good example of how a lack of perfect rhyme can enhance a lyric's emotion. It's also a great song to show how using a verse with an odd number of phrases (5 lyric phrases per verse in this case) creates an unbalanced effect that again leaves the listener a little off-centre. Once again, this helps to add to the song's emotion. If you are interested, here's a link to McGraw's version of the song on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmbv9IMroM8

In my opinion, Burr has written a terrific lyric and one that well captures the the longing and loss that the singer is feeling. If you look the lyric up on the 'net and simply read it aloud, you'll feel how the lyric still works without music.

FOR PAT MARR: A note on my creative process

Pat, these days when I write a song, I always look at the ends of lyric lines and see if I can make them suggest a story all by themselves, without surrounding text. I'm not always successful in doing this but I keep it in mind because these natural stops in lyric motion are more strongly emphasized to the listener and thus are more important and more memorable. In the Jonah verse, I have ocean / rock / shore / God's. These words pass my test in that they, by themselves, create good, suggestive imagery in my mind.

Another test that I apply is to look at the power positions of the first and last lines of a verse. Again, because of the way the average human brain works, these lines are emphasized to the listener. In each of my verses, I try to make the first and last lines literally summarize the verse. For example:

Then there was Jonah who was floundering in the ocean
His rescue was a miracle of God's

To my thinking, these lines pass this little test of mine.

All the above being said, though, I'm always on the lookout to make what I have written stronger and better. For this reason, I really appreciate comments from other people (musician or not). I find such comments very valuable because they stimulate my thinking in ways that would never have happened had the comment not been made.

Anyway... as I said, that's just my tuppence worth

All the best,
Noel

Last edited by Noel96; 03/12/10 02:22 AM.
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