Pat Pattisons Songwriting Essential Guide to Rhyming | Step-by-Step Lyric Writing Book for Poets and Songwriters | Improve Rhyme Techniques and Wordplay | Berklee Press Second Edition

by Pat Pattison

(Berklee Press). This book has a very specific purpose: to help you find better rhymes and use them more effectively. Rhyme is one of the most crucial areas of lyric writing, and this guide will provide you with all the technical information necessary to develop your skills completely. Make rhyme work for you, and your lyric writing will greatly improve. If you have written lyrics before, even at a professional level, you can still gain greater control and understanding of your craft with the exercises and worksheets included in this book. Hone your writing technique and skill with this practical and fun approach to the art of lyric writing. Start writing better than ever before! You will learn to: * Use different types of consonant and vowel sounds to improve your lyric story * Find more rhymes and choose which ones are most effective * Spotlight important ideas using rhyme The second edition of this classic songwriting text contains new strategies and insights, as well as analyses of the rhymes of Randy Newman, Warren Zevon, T.S. Eliot, and other songwriters and poets.

Genres: Music, Writing, Nonfiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

Reviews

[Katelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very helpful. This book is marketed as a book for anyone wanting to create songs with rhyme, a complete newbie who’s never wrote a single song or for advanced writers who have wrote for years. And I agree to an extent. The book seems to pander to both groups at times. I think any songwriter could manage to improve, even just a little from this guide. I have to admit that the terms in this book do seem to come up without any explanations and rarely any definitions. The author continues to refer to terms that are quite complicated and hardly explained. I was able to, for the most part, understand and decipher, but I can’t image a complete beginner could say the same. I do have to give credit that, when not referring to the new terms, the book was wrote in a very simple, easy to understand way. I also want to say that I didn’t find myself doing much of the exercises, after the first couple, since I don’t have a rhyming dictionary, and the book HEAVILY stressing the importance of a rhyming dictionary throughout every chapter. And I too, understand the importance of a rhyming dictionary for some writers, but this book was published in 1991, before rhymes could be easily found on the internet. I just don’t see a reason, in 2019, to use a rhyming dictionary, if I could use RhymeZone. Think smarter, not harder. (No rhyme intended 😉)

One idea I LOVED and definitely will use for the future is the idea of the worksheet! It’s one of those ideas that make you think, “How didn’t I think of that?” Another thing I loved was when Pat broke down plosives, replacing the consonants after and before the vowel. I definitely learned from the Partial Rhyme chapter. Also, I’m glad he touched on internal rhyme, something I’d always tried to stop doing for some reason, but have always wrote a lot. I even just realized that’s what I was doing, not just writing really short lines. Lol

So, this is a very informative book and has a lot of great information on imperfect rhymes that would be eye opening for some people and introduce them to a whole new world of rhyme! I had used imperfect rhymes before, but the information in this book was still helpful. The text on mosaic rhymes was a great addition to this book.
I had never heard of Feminine/Masculine rhyming before so that was useful. The last chapter, “Beauty and the Beast” (lip vs tongue vowels) was fascinating and introduced an opinion on long vowels that I hadn’t heard before, but that I agree with. The introduction and break down of junctures is something that I hadn’t really noticed/realized before, but I sure will in the future!
Spotlighting/hot spots was also so valuable for me, along with not ending a line with a transition verb (in most cases) or boring/meaningless/cliche words.
Overall this book is essential for new writers, helpful for established lyricists, but remember, this book was wrote B.T.I. (Before the Internet) so I suggest spending more time on the lessons in the book and less time on the Rhyming Dictionary. Hope this review wasn’t as all over the place as it seemed.

[David Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're interested in improving your lyric writing skills, this book contains some useful exercises. Although the emphasis is definitely on rhyming. I've just started looking at _Writing Better Lyrics_ , another book by the same author, and my sense is that that is going to prove a lot more useful.

[Sabne Raznik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a workbook to teach you how to properly use a rhyming dictionary, not only during the writing process itself, but also to generate ideas. The concept is that one will no longer have writer's block if one uses a rhyming dictionary properly. Great fro poetry as well as songwriting. Very instructive.

[Sami Al-Khalili · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book that inspired the first song I've ever written. This is a must-have in your library.