Perfect Rhymes vs. Imperfect Rhymes

I took an online songwriting course from Berkley College of Music taught by Pat Pattison several years ago. In the part of the course on songwriting, he made the point that imperfect rhymes can add an element of lyrical "tension" or an "unresolved" quality that may actually be an effective technique to use when its appropriate to the situation of the song. It's a parallel to a lack of harmonic or melodic resolution in the music: it can be appropriate ifyou want to convey lack of closer, forward momentum, indecision, uncertainty, etc.

Another thing to keep in mind is that everyday conversational pronunciation/diction is far less precise and can be characterized by elision, slurring syllables together, replacing consonant clusters with simpler ones (e.g., "splinter" becoming "splinner". In rap and rock music, lyricists can get away with a lot less precision because they are pronouncing the words in a more colloquial way, rather than exact, dictionary diction. I think it might come across as twee, artificial and less natural, or overbearing if Hamilton had all perfect rhyme, for instance.

Updated On: 7/11/20 at 01:58 PM

To continue Hogan's train of thought, to some (particularly those who grew up on pop music and slant rhymes) perfect rhyming can make all the characters sound like they are at one of Cole Porter's cocktail parties.

(On the other hand, the "hillbilly" characters of L'IL ABNER all sing in perfect rhymes by the master, Johnny Mercer. As do the "underworld" characters of GUYS AND DOLLS, with Frank Loesser's lyrics. So the impact of rhyming in comedies seems to be different than in "representational" musical plays.)

Oddly enough, my college advisor told me the exact OPPOSITE of the advice attributed to Pat Pattison above. My advisor told me to take out some of the perfect rhymes and put in imperfect rhymes instead in order to LOWER the tension of everyone singing with such precise diction.

If what Pattison is reported to have said is true, why bother with slant rhymes? Why not use identities (as Hammerstein did in his work with Rodgers) or simply not rhyme at all?

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Having finally seen HAMILTON (with the subtitles turned on), I have to report my surprise that Miranda doesn't use imperfect, "pop" rhyming more than he actually does.

Updated On: 7/13/20 at 12:49 AM

^^^^^ I wasn't in the room where it happened, JB, but knowing their other work, I suspect Fornes and Carmines were making an asset out of a liability. (Carmines did some interesting work with Gertrude Stein's texts, unrhymed of course because that's the way Stein wrote, even when she intended her words to be sung.)

Paul Gordon is a current example of work where the characters sometimes sing in the prose of the source novel, sometimes sing in unrhymed verse, sometimes in rhymed verse. And, damn, if I can figure out what convention he is employing in any given show! I love DADDY LONG LEGS and like some of Gordon's other scores; but I'd like them better if I knew why the characters sing as they do.

I think I may prefer DLL so strongly because the "epistolary" nature of the source material gives Gordon's libretto a structure and a reality lacking in his other shows.

Updated On: 7/12/20 at 01:51 AM

Charley Kringas Inc said: "Something I find notable about perfect rhymes is that they’re also a way to assist the viewer in understanding the lyrics...."

You've done a great job of stating one side of the "navigational" argument. As I suggested above, not everyone gets their "bearings" in the same way. One aspect of this that you touch on and that I have always found interesting is the different ways people pronounce words and letters in English, and how that affects "perfection." In some accents, final consonants are not just soft but are silent. (Listen to Billie Joe Armstrong speak and sing (in what I assume is an East Bay accent) and you will get an example. Then listen to John Gallagher Jr sing his words in a much more articulated (in what I assume is an Atlantic Seaboard accent) way. I remember another example mentioned to me by a songwriter once, the word "forty." If you expect a singer to say a "t" instead of a "d," you are making a choice that actually affects how the listener perceives the character singing it.

Wow, Mike, you took great notes! I'm going to keep a copy, if you don't mind.

Yeah, I assumed Mueller (my guy) and Pattison were probably just using the word "tension" in different senses of the word. What I didn't mention was that I had written the prologue of an opera in perfectly rhymed couplets, which got to be more than a bit much after a while. The scene was much better when I re-wrote it in (unrhymed) free verse, and the composer was happier, too.

Thanks!

With something as personal as rhyming, context is everything, isn't it?

Jason Robert Brown's absolutely perfect rhymes for his small-town 1960's characters in BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY don't make those plain people any less colloquial and salt of the earth than if their rhyming had been imperfect. The tunes might be country-inflected, but those impeccable rhymes maintained the high standard of the best Broadway showtunes of the period.

And when he wanted to create an unpolished inarticulate statement for the husband Bud, he wrote "Something from a Dream" for him, a song containing zero rhymes.

JRB simply wouldn't let himself settle for an imperfect rhyme in that thoroughly perfect score.

And am I putting a value judgement on the perfect rhyme held in higher esteem over the imperfect one? Yeah, you bet I am.

Updated On: 7/13/20 at 03:57 PM

My rule for musicals has always been,

If you do imperfect rhyme, it has to be enough imperfect rhyme that it's part of the storytelling (Spring Awakening using imperfect rhyme to pastiche pop punk rock)

If the show is primarily perfect rhyme it has to stay perfect rhyme otherwise the non perfect rhyme will stick out like a sore thumb that you couldn't find a perfect rhyme.

Someone in a Tree2 said: "With something as personal as rhyming, context is everything, isn't it?

Jason Robert Brown's absolutely perfect rhymesfor his small-town 1960's characters inBRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY don't make those plain people any less colloquial and salt of the earth than if their rhyminghad been imperfect. The tunesmight be country-inflected, but those impeccablerhymes maintained the high standard of the best Broadway showtunes of the period.

And when he wanted to create an unpolished inarticulate statement for the husband Bud, he wrote "Something from a Dream" for him, a song containing zero rhymes.

JRB simply wouldn't let himself settle for an imperfect rhyme in that thoroughlyperfect score.

And am I putting a value judgement on the perfect rhyme held in higher esteem over the imperfect one? Yeah, you bet I am.

"

I agree with every word, Someone, even while acknowledging our bias.

And to me, BRIDGES is the best Broadway score so far this century.

Gaveston, thanks for the nod of approval, sir.
I would probably agree with you that BRIDGES remains one of my two favorite Bway scores of at least the last ten years. Wanna hear my other favorite? The gorgeous but perpetually slant-rhymed HADESTOWN.

See how open-minded I can be in the face of sheer brilliance?

Updated On: 7/13/20 at 06:06 PM

GavestonPS said: "Hogan, without arguing your point, I think you've picked the wrong example. To me--and I acknowledge that this is partly subjective--BRIDGES sacrifices nothing of resonance with its perfect rhyming. And I don't believe the show failed because it didn't employ slant rhymes.

That if failed so badly says something very sad, I fear, about contemporary audiences and their lack of interest in musical theater with any theme more complicated than "Love conquers all.""

I'm not arguing your point either LOL. I did not mean subjective resonance, but the broader resonance that makes a show successful in a commercial setting. (And no I am also not urging a causal connection between perfect rhymes and failure.) What I do disagree with is your effort to lay the blame on "contemporary audiences." First of all, I don't believe you are seriously suggesting that today's successful musicals are all vapid and simplistic; there are way too many that I know you know about that are anything but. (On the contrary, I think there are other decades that would be much better targets for that notion.) And secondly, I also find it hard to believe you think Bullets as a subject was some paragon of rich literature. I respect the fact that you adore the score and I don't think any one element inherently kills any show, but I just think that it (notwithstanding your feelings about it) fails to give a lot of people a reason to be interested. (Me included, obviously, but that's beside the point.)

I think in the case of Sondheim, his lyrics do tend to be so urbane, in terms of the concepts/ideas, metaphors, and wordplay he utilizes and the vocabulary he utilizes, that, in his hands, perfect rhyme does often come across as intelligence, or at least, sharp wit. "A Little Priest" is a good example: Lovett and Todd are not highborn or educated, but each rhyme that ripples out of their mouths is like a tiny intellectual epiphany. Somehow, he manages to make it seem spontaneous. For Jack and Little Red in ITW, he still uses perfect rhyme, but awkwardly when they are both inexperienced at the beginning ("to granny who is sick in bed/ for all that I know, she's already dead", to a little bit more polished when they have gone through their quests, though the concepts and diction he uses are simpler than their adult counterparts ("she brings you food and she brings you rest/ and she draws you close to her giant breast".

Updated On: 7/13/20 at 07:10 PM

^ I’m not a fan of PASSION at all, but I would venture to say that dazzling rhyming calls more attention to the lyricist than to the character singing. And for PASSION, SS wanted to disappear as much as possible and let the story be front and center.

Still made for an insufferable evening for yours truly.

Updated On: 7/14/20 at 11:56 AM