WRITING FEVER

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About Rhyme Types

by Joel Hirschhorn

Rhyme doesn’t seem like a controversial word. It’s love and above, moon and June, and sing and spring. Or is it down and around, shine and mind, and laugh and pass? It’s both. The issue that continues to rage is: Do rhymes have to be true or can they be false soundalikes? If you ask the master craftsman of Broadway, Stephen Sondheim, if false rhymes are acceptable, you’ll be hit with a resounding no.

I used to stand with the Sondheims and I still prefer the true rhyme, but I’m not as dogmatic about it because attitudes toward rhyme have changed. But other lyric ingredients stay the same. As this "article" points out, learning structure will prevent you from wandering formlessly and ensure that every thought comes across with emotional clarity. Alliteration (in which two or more words in a line start with the same letter) makes the line flow easily and effortlessly. And using vowels such as “e” and “o” helps singers to achieve greater vocal passion and power.

Rhyming Time

There’s more latitude in rhyming today than there used to be, but one thing is still certain: On Broadway, where standards of craft are mercilessly strict, you have to rhyme perfectly. If you don’t, critics will pounce on you and probably close your show before anyone gets a chance to see it. The pop world is different. Pop music is not just for educated sophisticates, but for the masses, and the byword is honesty. Singers and writers have to relate to the man (or woman) on the street. If the words are too slick, they’ll be rejected as pretentious.

Types of Rhymes

Most rhymes fall into one of the following categories:

Perfect rhyme. The sounds are exactly alike, as in day/play, joy/boy, blaze/craze, and ease/knees.

False rhyme. Still a matter of controversy among writers, this rhyme pairs words that contain similar sounds, such as time/mine, down/around, and hard/car.

Masculine rhyme. This rhyme involves a single syllable. That syllable may be the entire word as in store/floor or the last syllable in longer word, as in venerate/ segregate. In a masculine rhyme, the final syllable is accented, as in these words: resound, avoid, reply, and consume.

Feminine rhyme. In this two-syllable rhyme, the stress falls on the first part of the word: walker/stalker. The final syllable of the word is unaccented, as in softness, careful, and fairest.

Open rhyme. This rhyme ends softly as in flow/toe or sky/pie.

Inner rhyme. “The wall is tall and close to the mall” illustrates multiple rhyming within a single sentence.