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The Art of Songwriting: Panel VII
Dissecting the craft with a panel of experts.
By: Gina Kay Singerhouse
Jack Rosenquist
“One, two...buckle my shoe. Three, four...shut the door. Five, six...pick up sticks. Seven, eight...lay them straight. Nine, ten...big fat hen!”
Rhyme, many of us grew up learning to various rhyme schemes. As children this approach of teaching made learning fun and enjoyable, but most of all memorable and effective. Can you remember some of the rhymes that were taught to you?
I remember one, that my parents had taught me. It went like this… “eight times eight, fell on the floor...when I picked it up it was sixty-four!”
As we grew older, we may have used such cadences to remember other important details to further our education. Perhaps you even made up your own rhyme to remember necessary facts to enhance your learning skills.
Life is full of rhyme. Unbeknownst to us, rhyme is part of our daily lives. We can find rhyme in greeting cards, movies and stories...
“’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...”
If you are an avid listener of music, which we believe that you are, you will understand what we are talking about. Take a closer look at the lyrics from your favorite song. Do they rhyme? Most lyrics in today’s country music rhyme.
Perhaps the most notable song with very questionable lyrics that rhyme is found in Charlie Daniels’ “Devil Went Down To Georgia.”
He played Fire on the Mountain run boys, run
The devil’s in the House of the Rising Sun
Chicken in a bread pan pickin’ out dough
Granny, does your dog bite? No child, no
Fans and listeners of this popular song, frequently ask Mr. Daniels about this stanza, as it does not pertain to the rest of the song. We’ll address this later in this article.
As the years progress, more people are writing songs. We are seeing an up crease in rhyme within today’s music. Why is this? Is this the reason for the downfall in music? Is this why we as listeners can not relate to a song?
The staff at Strictly Country listens to thousands of songs each year. We are always looking for that one particular song that will touch your heart as it enters your soul. This specific song can be a heartfelt ballad that may bring tears to your eyes or it can be a melody that encourages you to stand up and dance. Either way, it touches you in a manner that begs you to listen to it repeatedly.
Too frequently, we are entertained by albums filled with songs that are over powered with rhyme. As the years progress, we find that majority of the songs released by various entertainers often contain so much rhyme that it compromises the meaning behind the lyrics. These dominating ryhmes mixed with duplicate melodies have prompted us to turn to the experts on the process of songwriting. Almost two years ago, we started this extended expose` as we explored The Art of Songwriting.
So to help us all understand the songwriting and recording process we thought that we would open up this discussion to the professionals. I put the call out to some of our friends who happen to be entertainers, songwriters and teachers of songwriting to come together to help us understand and address issues in songwriting. In each issue of Strictly Country, we will continue to address another concern about songwriting and we will discuss each of these with our panel of professionals. Let us introduce you to our panel of professionals...
The first to join this panel is Mark 'Brink' Brinkman. Brink is one of the most highly sought after songwriters in Bluegrass, Country and Gospel genres. His songs have been recorded by some of the music industries highly notable entertainers including Larry Sparks, Grasstowne, Don Rigsby, Lou Reid & Carolina, Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road and Dave Adkins. He has won various awards including six Spirit Awards. Many of his songs have earned positions in Strictly Country’s list of Top Songs of the year, while earning nominations for the Spirit Award’s Song of The Year. Today, he continues to write songs and is a songwriting instructor.
Our next expert is Judy Rodman. Judy hit the country music scene with her 1986 hit song "Until I Met You." Throughout her vocal career, she has sung background vocals for some of country music's notorious entertainers like Johnny Cash and Tammy Wynette. Prior to the release of her third album, her record label folded. Instead of being in the spotlight of the music industry, Rodman focused on the behind the scenes portion. She has earned a wide variety of awards including the 2016 Spirit Award - President Choice Award for Best Country Album for her album Here We Are, recorded with her husband John Rodman. Today, she is an award winning vocal coach, recording artist, stage and television performer, public speaker, author, multi-genre hit songwriter, studio producer and vocal consultant.
Joining our panel next is Rick Stanley. Rick is the second cousin of the infamous Stanley Brothers, Carter and Ralph Stanley. Growing up Rick spent many hours with his father, with Carter and Ralph singing and enjoying time well spent through music. By the age of fifteen, Rick penned the very famous Bluegrass song "Home In The Mountains." The song was originally recorded by Ralph Stanley; however, it was recorded by many other great Bluegrass artists and even earned Rick a Grammy nomination. In the 1990s he held a major publishing deal with Maypop Music and enjoyed touring with Stonewall Jackson. Today, Rick tours with his wife Donna Ulisse as a member of The Poor Mountain Boys. He also continues to write songs and is an instructor for Donna's Songwriting Escape workshops.
Our final professional to join our panel is Donna Ulisse. Donna first emerged onto the music scene in the 1980's as a demo singer and background vocalist in Country music. In 1991, she released her debut album Trouble At The Door. Since then she has migrated over to Bluegrass and recorded nine more albums. Donna is another very highly sought after songwriter in Bluegrass. She has earned many numerous award nominations and named Songwriter of The Year by the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) in 2016. In January 2016, she earned The Spirit Award's President's Choice Award for Best Bluegrass Album for Hard Cry Moon. Her songs have been recorded by a variety of artists. In 2014, Donna wrote her first book, The Songwriter In Me, to earn great reviews. Today, she continues to demo, write songs and tour with her band The Poor Mountain Boys. She also is the owner and teacher of Songwriting Escape, a touring songwriting workshop.
Of course, I have to add Jack and I to this panel as well. Jack is my co-host of Strictly Country's Friday night radio show Around The Campfire. Jack served in the United States Army, is a fan and a great aficionado of Rock, Country and Bluegrass music. As for myself, for over twenty-five years I have been the owner, operator and Editor in chief of Strictly Country magazine.
Now that you know our panel of experts, let's continue with the subject of the art of songwriting. In this segment, we address the issue of rhyme. The next question that we brought to our panel of experts is this… As a songwriter, when do you know there is too much rhyme within the lyrics?
“That I chalk up to natural instinct for me.” shares Donna Ulisse. “I have an ability to put myself into the listener’s place a lot of times while I’m writing, because I’m very conscious of that. Then I’ll sit back and listen. I read it as a poem and I listen from a listener’s point of view to the sound of my voice and where things are falling in. It’s natural for me to take out something that sounds redundant or over used. I am conscious of that myself.”
“There are a lot of near rhymes that she’ll [Donna] use, instead of hard rhymes.” adds Rick Stanley.
“Another thing that I do...I do a lot of inner rhymes.” adds Donna. “Again, it seems right in the song. I’ll change it if my ears thinks it sounds wrong. Some of that might just be doing it long enough to develop that instinct. Like anything, the more you write, the better you get!”
What really started this panel was an album that we came across years ago. Each song on the album had an incredible chorus, with a great hook that had no rhyme, while the rest of the song contained verses that all rhymed from one line to the next. In this case, the songwriter had worked so hard to rhyme, that the lyrics could not connect with the hook. This created a collection of horrifying songs that listeners could not associate with.
“When I do one of my workshops, we spend a lot of time on rhymes.” shares Brink Brinkman. “Rhyming just to rhyme will destroy a song, always! It will always destroy a song! You have to have the meaning, you cannot compromise the meaning for a rhyme! If you have to put something down just for the rhyme, you are compromising your whole song.”
There are many styles of rhyme that a songwriter can use. These styles include perfect rhyme (the end of each line will rhyme with a previous line), internal rhyme (the rhyme is within a single line of the verse), alteration (this is when the same initial consonant sound repeats in close succession), assonance (this occurs when the vowels in a single given line rhyme), consonance (this is present when one or two consonants in the words of a stanza repeat in close succession, even if the words themselves don’t have perfect rhyme), half-rhyme (this is when the final consonants repeat, regardless of the vowels or initial consonants), and reverse rhyme (structurally, it is the reverse of what we think of as a typical rhyme). There are other rhyme schemes to follow out there; including ballade, monorhyme, couplet, triplet, enclosed, terza rima, keats odes, limerick and villanelle. Basically it all goes back to grammar school.
“Doing it on purpose and it feels right within the genre; one word that they use for something like that is Rap. Really brilliant Rap, and I’m not talking about garage, I’m not talking about gangster Rap. I’m talking about street Rap and even Christian Rap; it’s incredibly brilliantly written where there’s rhymes that are just in order and there’s so many rhymes in a row. That’s that genre. There maybe other places that you use that on purpose.” adds Judy Rodman. “In general, in listening to it—you should not see the seams, you should not see where they tried to rhyme. It should just feel like it flows...”
The key to a great song is that it must flow. So why did Charlie Daniels include the bizarre stanza in his song “Devil Went Down To Georgia?” The stanza allowed the song to flow.
“...that’s becoming more of a master at writing.” shares Judy. “The way you find out is, dissect other songs that do it like you like it and also get feedback from other people! How does it sound to them? Does it sound dumb? Get a critique from a master writer; let them bust you on trite phrases and too many obvious rhymes.”
Too frequently, we are entertained by albums filled with songs that are over powered by rhyme. As the years progress, we find that majority of the songs released by various entertainers often contain so much rhyme that it is impossible to enjoy their creative work.
“In the rock-n-roll genre, I mean classic rock; there are very few songs that contain rhyme.” adds Jack. “If they do, the rhyme is hidden to the point that your brain does not pick it out.”
Yes, rhyme is essential in songwriting. Songs are created for the ears and not the eyes. A finely calibrated song will allow the brain to follow the experience melodically and not through the cadence.
So how do you write a song like that?
A person does not have to search far to find a class that teaches songwriting. Most are taught to start writing their lyric with hard rhyme, while making each line rhyme with the next. However, as Brink stated before, this can have a huge negative affect on your creativity.
If you are working on the rhyme within the lyrics, you are essentially limiting your vocabulary. This restricts the songwriter from developing a creative experience for the listener. Music is all about the experience.
Think of this…if you are sitting with friends telling a story, how would you tell it? Would you tell the story in rhyme? How would that affect your story?
If a songwriter is not tied down to rhyming, how much more can say within a song? How much more of the story, will the listener experience if the songwriter is not forced to rhyme?
Again, take a closer look at your favorite songs and ask ‘why do they stand out, among the others?’ Is it due to the rhyme within the song or is it because of the creativity found in the song?
In 2006, we began compiling a list of the worst songs and albums of each year called The CD Coaster Award. As part of the Spirit Awards, but is not actually an award per se, majority of the music that appears on this list are here due to lack of creativity. The result of the amount of songs and albums on this list is staggering. Sadly, the list gets bigger each year.
Tune in next time as we delve more into rhyme and other aspects in The Art of Songwriting...
(This article was printed in the July / August 2018 issue of Strictly Country.)
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