Writing Great Songs

What Rhymes with “Silver”?

You have a great song, well on its way, but you can’t seem to get that last Rhyme in to complete your rhyme scheme and you are ready to throw away the second verse altogether! Never fear, Below is a list of Rhyming tools and resources to get you out of almost any Rhyming Challenge!

• Rhyme Zone: Find rhymes, synonyms, definitions, and more! http://www.rhymezone.com/
• SongRhyme: A cool rhyming word generator of perfects and close rhymes by and for songwriters – http://songrhyme.com/
• Dillfrog: A searchable rhyme data base that lets you select the type of rhyme you are looking for http://muse.dillfrog.com/sound/search
• WikiRhymer®: a free online rhyming tool. has a pro version as well for $7 per year.  www.wikirhymer.com
• B-Rhymes: A rhyming dictionary that’s not stuck up about what does and doesn’t rhyme. It gives you words that sound good together even if they don’t technically rhyme.  www.b-rhymes.com/
• Visual Rhymes: Lets you pick what kind of Rhyme you are looking for – End rhyme, double rhyme, First syllable rhyme, etc.  http://www.visualrhymes.com/index.php
• Rhyme Brain: Rhyming dictionary to search for perfect and close rhymes and a songwriting mode where you can put your lyrics in and search for useful words as you go. http://rhymebrain.com

Slate magazine has an interesting article on the most common rhymes in the history of popular music. read it here…

Some resources to understand the plosives, consonance, assonance …

Alliteration: the repeated sound of the first consonant in a series of multiple words, or the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables of a phrase. more…

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

— Bob Dylan, Lay, Lady, Lay

Assonance: Repeating vowel sounds creating internal rhyming within phrases.  more…  http://literarydevices.net/assonance/

on a proud round cloud in white high night

— E. E. Cummings, if a cheerfulest Elephantangelchild should sit

Consonance: the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession. more… Example: I dropped the locket in the thick mud.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain. 

 — Edgar Allan Poe‘s The Raven:

Mark Birch explaining consonance, alliteration, sibilance and plosives

A couple more articles on Assonance and Consonance

• http://www.sterlingschools.org/shs/stf/jbarnh/poetry/eop14.htm
• http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-consonance-and-assonance.htm