The task of finding a rhythm is not an art. Many composers think so, which is why they consider the use of a rhyming dictionary sacrilegious. Figuring out all the possible rhymes you can use can only benefit your song. Before I get into the fantastic benefits of using a rhyming dictionary, I just want to cover a basic rhyming topic. It will help me explain why a rhyming dictionary is beneficial.
male vs. female rhyme
Masculine rhymes are easy to understand. Any one-syllable word that rhymes with another one-syllable word is a masculine rhyme.
“Pie” and “tie” are masculine rhymes. “Love” and “glove” are masculine rhymes. Pretty easy, right?
The female rhythm is a bit more complex. “Feminine, complex?” you ask. “How can it be?!”
Multi-syllable words have stressed and unstressed syllables. Say the word “rhyme” out loud. Do you hear how the syllable “rhym-” is more stressed than the syllable “-ing”. Say it again and listen carefully.
Rhymes usually occur on the stressed syllable of a word. In the case of the word “rhyming”, the “rhym-” part is the part we want to rhyme with.
With that in mind, the words “rhyme” and “time” are feminine rhymes. It’s not just because they have two syllables, but because the strong stress (or rhyming stress) occurs on the penultimate syllable and NOT on the last syllable. I am going to put the stressed syllable in bold, so that it is clear:
rhyme-in g
Tim-in g
You see it? The rhyme moves away from the last syllable. So this is a female beat. The same goes for words like “flighty” and “mighty.” They are feminine rhymes because the rhyme occurs on the penultimate syllable. If you say the words out loud, you’ll hear that the syllables “flight-” and “might-” are the stressed syllables, so they rhyme. Make sense?
But what about a word with several syllables that ENDS in a strong syllable? Like the word “sublime”. Well, what I didn’t tell you before about masculine rhymes is that, not only do they occur for one-syllable words, but they also occur for multi-syllable words that END in a stressed syllable.
Say the word “sublime” out loud. Do you hear how the syllable “-lime” is the stressed syllable? It gets more emphasis than the “sub-” part. Therefore, this is a masculine rhyme. The good thing is that we can rhyme it with another masculine word that only has one syllable. For example, “sublime” and “time” rhyme. Cool right?
As long as the last syllable is stressed, we will have a masculine rhyme. That’s why one-syllable words are masculine rhymes. They only have one syllable, so by its nature it is the last syllable.
Rhyming dictionary
I recommend buying a rhyming dictionary. I know what you may be thinking: “I don’t need that, I’m going to RhymeZone.com.” Well, you could do that, but the real thing is better for a couple of reasons.
One thing I used to notice about online dictionaries was that they had trouble distinguishing between masculine and feminine rhymes. They forced rhymes that didn’t fit. If you were to write a masculine rhyme like “bling”, you’d be returned some feminine options that wouldn’t make much sense. Words like “fight” could make the cut. “Fighting” is a feminine rhyme. The emphasis is on the “fight-” syllable, not the “-ing”. If you try to rhyme “Bling” with “fight-ING”, you’ll force the emphasis on the last syllable, where it doesn’t belong. This will make your lyrics sound unnatural. Say the word “fight” out loud with the stress on “-ing” and you’ll see what I mean. “Struggle.” Sure, I guess it rhymes with “bling” now, but it sounds weird.
To their credit, in my more recent searches of online dictionaries, they seem to be doing a better job of showing masculine and feminine rhymes, where appropriate. If you use an online rhyming dictionary, be on the lookout for possible masculine/feminine rhyming problems and avoid using rhymes that don’t work.
Other than that, it’s nice to have a physical rhyming dictionary, because you can flip through the pages and examine many different options at the same time. They divide the masculine and feminine rhymes into separate sections, so there is no confusion. My rhyming dictionary even has a section for triple rhymes, which are words that have their syllable stressed on the third syllable from the end.
For example
I haven’t given you any solid evidence yet as to why you shouldn’t shy away from a rhyming dictionary (whether it’s a physical book or an online version). Let’s look at a real world example. Here’s a line from the Nickelback song, “Photographer.”
Kim is the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous that I almost lost myself
If I had to guess, I would say that a rhyming dictionary was not used in the second line. It seems a bit cheesy and it sounds like the word “missed” was used because it’s a rhyme you’d quickly think of for the word “kissed”.
As an exercise, how many words that rhyme with “kissed” can you think of? Try it.
My turn. I have: lost, happiness (not a perfect rhythm), fist, scorned. I’m pretty much out of ideas after those four.
Now I’ll look in the masculine section of my rhyming dictionary to see more options.
I have: help, exist, enumerate, discard, insist, enlist, twist, persist, resist. There were plenty more in there, but I pulled out the ones that seemed to be from the Nickelback line we’re looking at. I already have more options than I had in my head and they are all related to the meaning of the letter (more or less).
From the beginning we could have done:
Kim is the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous but I couldn’t resist
gold
Kim is the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous, but she insisted
I’d have to change the way they were sung to make them work, but I think they’re moving away from the cheesy “I was so nervous I almost lost myself” line, so I could certainly work with them.. And if you like the original Nickelback line, that’s fine (I guess), but check out the other immediate options I got from the rhyming dictionary. I just did this quickly. If I had spent more time on this, I could have found many more possibilities. A far cry from what was available off the top of my head.
Finding a rhythm is not an art. It’s okay to use a rhyming dictionary. It can only give you more options. So go crazy. I promise it doesn’t make you any less of a creative artist.