The Mistake All Beginner Songwriters Make (and how to avoid it!)

Omg!🎉🎉🎉 Thank you mem🙏

I wrote my first song(ish) over the past days. Never learned music, so had a few attempts at grasping just enough to work from key and come up with a very simple chord progression.

Glad I finally tried this, as I now have a base to work from. And needless to say, working this way suddenly opens all kinds of musical doors and gives you a basic understanding of what is out there, even if you don't really know the concepts, you can see them in the distance.

So anyone who, like me, has zero musical background and finds themself going in circles... Go for it, and you will be thanking yourself for it. Learn about chord progressions, and take it from there. It's an easier way to learn than totally ground-up IMO, as it will bring you in contact with both the basics of what is a song, as well as the basics of what is a scale, etc. Really helped me make sense of the theory.

I like simple but 'flowy' words like "radio".

I am actively working on my first lyrics and the Rhyme word is "sand". The slant rhymes are kind of tough. I came up with can, dare and fair but I feel Fair is to close to Dare.

melody is my framework

Eminem uses this to rhyme the word orange

Near rhymes. Maybe not always exact rhymes.

Iv recently written a song that used Collide & Tide haha

“I feel our hearts collide
Like a crashing ocean tide”

Assonance <3

This was a real light-bulb moment for me. It's absolutely absurd that I didn't already know this, but I'm going to forgive myself for that and get back to writing. Thanks Keppie!

Many thanks for that. I'm french speaking, and write lyrics in french where 'perfect rymes' is the way that we use to, so i've used this way in english too ! .. my bad, now i understand why my english lyrics sucks ! ... 😁

This video single handedly elevated my poetry to the next level. I now routinely use the methods I learnt from this video to come up with interesting rhymes, so thank you!

Virgil KANE is the name
And I served on the Danville TRAIN

Amazing video! Just one question, how do you recommend using the consonant chart? Should I look for slant rhymes in the same consonant category or different ones (or does it not really matter)? Thanks a lot!

now try to apply this to other languages than English and find resources that help with this 😮
Or simple give a toss about rhyme at all. Worx well for many if they actually have sth to say in their lyrics.

i love the app "rhymers block" it suggests rhymes in the way autocorrect would suggest corrections. it saves your lyrics in the app and backs them on the cloud

Thanks!

The word 'scrutiny' isn't poetic though, so dare I say that calling it a 'professional rhyme' with the word 'beautifully' is wrong. For example 'kilometer' is not used to describe distance in lyrics because 'miles' has a certain poetic quality to it. 'Scrutiny' smacks of 'legalese' and doesn't support the inherent pleasant quality of the word 'beautifully' at all. Sending people to a website dictionary tool is the death of creativity in my experience. You end up spending time on a website instead of brainstorming with a pencil and a page of paper.

REALLY? You cite far from the best examples and say they are professional songwriters. And the lyrics below is from the beginner, I guess, BECAUSE IT RHYMES
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you dont really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Like IN RAP SONG VANILLA ICE ITS ALL RHYMING ..

YOU CAN STRESSED THE RYHME EVEN IN THE MIDLE BY STRESSING IT CLEARLY LIKE IN COMEDY I FOUND IN SESAME STREET ROSES ARE RED VIOLETS ARE BLUE A LEGHORNED A CHICKEN AND SO ARE YOU ....OR MISSIS BROWN YOUVE GOT A LOVELY Daughter

RHYMING MEANS SOUNDING SAME AT THE END

Isn't this called assonance? Or as Rita puts it, "He got the rhyme wrong!"
This type of formulaic application of rules about what is acceptable or unacceptable in consecutive lines of a song is no different from saying the words should rhyme perfectly. I've written songs and poetry that employ both of these methods but I never consciously or deliberately contrived either. I wrote what I wanted to and what I was happy with. There are so many counter examples to prove the OP wrong that I'd be here all night listing them. Advice to lyricists and songwriters; Tell the story you want to tell, the way you want to tell it. Who is your song for and whose approval or validation do you need?

Amazing advise. Looking forward to getting involved with this. Ive got the Patt Pattison book aswell, but not the best at understanding when it comes to reading. Youve explained this very well. Cheers

Hi--nice to hear
(note: some of the videos you are referencing and pointing to didn't come up on the screen)

Why do you do this? What you're advocating is assonance instead of rhyme. You can't just go and say assonance is a form of rhyme - it isn't.
Rhyme is a form of assonance. Infact rhyme is assonance + consonance.
Rhyme is rhyme and assonance is assonance.
Assonance is what you use when you can't think of an unusual or clever enough rhyme.

my personal favorite rhyming in a song is:

my, alien world, alien face, misshapen alien wings
you're, alien too, foreign to me, foreign to so many things

try, leaving the rest, leaving it all, up to imagination
oh, didn't you know, reality, lies in the observation.

once, nobody knew, all thoughts were knew, oh what a curious world
go, back to the start, before the light, before the story unfurled.

go, back to the start, empty and dark, wasn't it fun back then?
say, wasn't it fun, wasn't it fun... now lets do it again.

I am only 14 right now, but started writing lyrics for songs sometime last year when I was 13, and to this day, I still do. I use rhymezone for my rhyming in songs.

One of my fav lyrics


Your Needs, My Needs by Noah Kahan

Oh well, who was I?
Who was I to watch you wilt?
You ain't gotta tell me what it means
Trace the outlines of your dreams
You'll always be a flower on my skin

In Portuguese, my native language, words usually end with vowels, except for infinitive words that end with 'r'. So, how would you apply the idea of not trying to rhyme the consonant but rather the vowels? I ask because rhyming infinitive words (ending in 'r') sounds very amateur, and rhyming the vowels at the end of words resembles a perfect rhyme.

Great. Know Rhymezone. But had used the near rhymes option. Two step better! Thanks!

Great video, which book covers motifs and how to make endings to motifs that transition to the beginning of the next motif making the effect of the music circular ?

Thank you so much for this! This was a big help 👍🏾☺️

A good song must have a good rhythm and a melody and lyrics that sync with d rhythm and d melody. F 8 s only good on lyrics, 8 s called poetry. F lyrics does not fit d accompaniment, 8 s not a song, 8 s a tragedy. As a good way to start, listen to the top songs n d billboard charts or any other forms like it. Maybe 8 s better to start with an accompaniment 2 filter ur lyrics n d process.

Your incredible for real!!! Subscribed!! Watched the 1st video & thought homie you should teach, then on this video discover you a professor, makes sense..

What you're talking about isn't rhyme, it's called assonance.

One of my all time favorite lyric rhymes...

You've been stripping in Portland since the day you turned 16
You got one thing to sell and benzodiazapene
-Jason Isbell

This is great advice, but isn’t this kind of “rhyme” called assonance?

The only time I rhyme is when I'm amusing myself. A twisted chime that clangs as it winds by the hand of an insane milf.

Whenever I forgot a lyric gigging, this was my go to trick, completely inventing a word with the right vowel sounds 🤣🤣🤣

YO!! The song she made was really cool

I sucked at rhyming they were all perfect rhymes everything had a greeting card vibe to it haha. So, I turned to the rap community. No melody, no hiding behind vocal harmony. Just straight up lyrics if the lyrics suck the whole song is over! Word bending and your accent are super important for your seamless flow when your performing your songs. You can also breakdown words into syllables which gives you more to rhyme with and sometimes 2 different words which is an awesome set up for double entendres.

I don't think the Taylor Swift example is purely the effect of the strongest syllable. It's a combination of that, both words have 3 syllables and both the 2nd and 3rd that rhyme. Comments on a postcard please.

Famous example of imperfect rhyming/slant rhyming is Eminem rhyming orange juice with four inch screws, both phrases follow the same vowels roughly, depending on the pronunciation

What… Scrutiny and Beautifully doesn’t rhyme at all? There not even a hint of rhyme, not even a bounce…

I love the way Slipkot rhymes in Duality

"I have screamed until my veins collapsed
I've waited as my time's elapsed
Now, all I do is live with so much hate
I've wished for this, I've bitched at that
I've left behind this little fact
You cannot kill what you did not create
I've gotta say what I've gotta say
And then, I swear, I'll go away
But I can't promise you'll enjoy the noise
I guess I'll save the best for last
My future seems like one big past
You're left with me 'cause you left me no choice"

Grt video!! I love this and it is so true so many writers these days go the lazy route rhyming every word well done!! I make this pt also

Thank you. 🙂

Not sure I agree with all this.