Elevation Centre: The Manual |
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Lord Puente
Newbie Final Boss Joined: 05 July 2016 Location: Florida Status: Offline Points: 1814 Text Rank: Unranked Stats: 4-2-0 Form: LWWWLW |
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Posted: 17 December 2016 at 11:37pm |
The Manual
What is music?
“Vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.”
What that is telling us, is that, what we write and/or spit should all be viewed as instruments on a beat. Beats sound good when all the instruments are in their precise location and hitting at the precise time. This is why structuring your shit is so important; it helps place your rhymes on the heartbeat of the track.
Audio and text are seen differently when speaking of bars. For text, the common thought here is 2 lines make 1 bar. I personally tend to lead towards the audio side, so or the purpose of this guide, we will say 1 bar = 1 line.
The typical beat is made up for a proper 16 (not always the case). Typically a standard track would consist of 3 verses. I also come from a bit of a poetical background, thus I tend to structure my bars differently. The structure I find useful when writing rhymes goes like this
The Breakdown of a Verse
1 verse = 16 bars
16 bars = 4 quatrains
1 quatrain = 2 couplets
1 couplet = 2 bars
1 bar = 1 line
Now, you may be thinking, ok cool, but what the fuck does a bar sound like… most of the time you will be dealing with 4
Lets say the beat goes:
Boom bap boom bap
Boom bap boom bap
Boom bap boom bap
Boom bap boom bap
Each of those lines would consist of a bar in this case. You can swap out each boom/bap with a number, and we will roll with the beloved 4 count.
That now converts that boom/bap to:
1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4
1-2-3-4
Basic Rhyming
Each of those lines is 1 measure of music, and consists of 4 beats as you see. These beats are where your rhymes will be landing for most oomph, to start you will focus on the 2nd and 4th. This can get much more advanced, but for learning purposes, we will start slow. I’ll be writing couplets for the following rhyme pattern examples.
The first basic pattern I will show you just have a basic 1 syllable end rhyme
The “rhyme skeleton” for this will be
-------A
-------A
Example:
When I grip the mic, I’m killin’ every beat,
So everyone quiets down to listen when I speak
Rhymes: Beat/Speak
Now you can build up to and add more rhymes to it
Here we will do:
---A---A
-------A
Example:
Everyday’s a struggle, just don’t stumble
Keep on pushing hard till your whole body crumbles
Rhymes: Struggle/Stumble/Crumbles
Ok, now that you got the basics, feel free to mix shit up by moving the rhymes around to different beats of the measure, or adding more rhymes to the current scheme.
Compound Rhymes (also known as multisyllabic rhymes)
What are compound rhymes?
There are rhymes that contain two or more syllables. This is the first step towards more advanced rhyming techniques which is now considered more of a basic form of rhyming as artists have developed the craft and made it much more intricate. There are multiple ways of forming compound rhymes, one would be using a word that has more than 1 syllable, such as : button/sudden, or it can be 2 words combined to 1 string of rhymes, such as: spit fire/ grip wire. You can also combine the forms, an example would be: his lack of/disastrous
Example:
You can say this is my quickest work
Cuz my only priority is to finish first
Rhymes: Quickest work/ Finish first
You can also do this by rhyming the syllables in their specific parts, yet skipping a single syllable in the string of rhymes. In order to do this smoothly, you will want to be dealing with the same amount of syllables.
Example:
It hurts so much when I’m hearing her name
I’m so sick and tired of dealing with pain
Rhyme: Hearing her name/dealing with pain
Now that you know how to do these different forms of compound rhyming, start putting these into the rhyme schemes. You can put a 2 syllable rhyme in as two ways, you can have just a single letter for the phrase being rhymed (---A,---A) or you can identify each syllable that rhymes with a different letter. An example of that is with the words compound/confound as ----AB,----AB
All these letters are not necessary per se they just help teach the basics. Once you get a grasp of everything you can ditch all the schemes because you will write with your own developed and natural style.
Internal Rhymes
Are words that rhyme within the bar, typically prior to your end rhymes, although as you advance more, you will be able to construct lines at your will with whatever patterns you’d like.
An example rhyme skeleton would look something like this for a single line with internals
--A—A—B
--A—A—B
I’m bringing change to this game when I take the throne
I’m spittin’ flames at these lames on the microphone
Internal Rhymes:
Change/game/flames/lames OR this can be seen as a compound internal rhyme with change to this game/flames to these lames
End Rhymes:
Take the throne/microphone (this is matching syllables and just one end syllable rhyming. This adds the effect of rhythmic rhyming due to same amount of syllables)
Or (to keep this clean, a single letter can represent either a single syllable rhyme, or a multi syllable rhyme)
--A—A—B
--C—C—B
Example:
Yall best wear a vest when I kick the door
Heartbeats stops, bodies drop, have stiffs on floor
Internal rhymes:
Best/vest
heartbeats stop/bodies drop
End rhymes:
Kick the door/stiffs on floor
Ok, so now you got all the basic technicalities down, I will also say, in my experience (depending on speed of beat) you should never use more than 16 or so syllables per line. And the lines of a couplet should be roughly about the same amount of syllables or close to it. Typically within two, but this can change as you become more advanced.
How To Add Flavor To Your Rhymes
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is
applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Example for thinking positive:
Bask in the sun and feel its rays on my face
Simile: a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing
of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid.
Example for being away from someone:
I’m incomplete without you like a night without the moon
Adding both metaphors and similes will increase the content of your verses.
This is how you can add more depth and character to your Open Mics. Think of
all the basic technical rhyming aspect we spoke about as the main things you
will be cooking for dinner, but if you don’t spice it all up, it will be a
waste and come out bland (trust me I’m a badass in the kitchen).
Wordplay: the witty exploitation of the meanings and ambiguities of words,
especially in puns.
Quick example:
Ill be lifting weight like I stole coke from eight drug dealers
breakdown
Lifting weights means working out in a gym
Lifting is slang for stealing
Weight can be a reference to a large amount of drugs
Imagery - visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a
literary work.
Quick example:
In the Dark night, the wind blew, dogs howled and it rained too.
Alliteration – the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning
of adjacent or closely connected words.
Quick example:
adapt and apply to form an alliteration assassination
attach the methods shown and behold this couplets amalgamation
Rhythmic Rhyme- this is when you rhyme by rhythim, the best example I can
give for this will actually be from Snoop Dogg in Nuthin’ but a G Thang.
Exmaple:
One, two, three and to
the four
These are just a few
things to dive into, there are more advanced forms, but this should be enough
to get you started with the basics.
Now go combine all
this shit and make a symphony
Edited by Endeavor - 04 January 2017 at 10:10am |
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Cuba
Senior Moderator Legendary Assassin Joined: 14 June 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 12329 Text Rank: Unranked Stats: 47-22-0 Form: WWWWLW |
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Skimmed & this looks glorious. Moved it to Elevation Centre and stickied.
#bananas |
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Endeavor
Senior Moderator Wiggle wiggle said the bun that jiggle Joined: 03 April 2009 Location: Your kitchen Status: Offline Points: 10000102 Text Rank: Unranked Stats: 5-4-0 Form: WWLWLW |
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I'm a strawberry man.
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#Bananas
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X~ile
Newbie Joined: 31 May 2017 Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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Thanks for the tips. It well said and put together
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Paracosm
Newbie Joined: 16 August 2017 Status: Offline Points: 14 |
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Nicely written both concise and educational.
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RosenBoss
Groupie Joined: 05 September 2018 Location: Nebraska Status: Offline Points: 66 Text Rank: Unranked Stats: 0-2-0 Form: LL |
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This is by far the best breakdown/guide I have ever seen. Very nicely done! If someone would have taken the time to explain this to me when I was first starting, I would have been spared a ton of embarrassment.
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ΔE(t)
Groupie Joined: 28 November 2018 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 50 |
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This is awesome. Super informative. Thanks for taking the time to make this.
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ΔE(t)
Groupie Joined: 28 November 2018 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 50 |
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Thanks Flame, I'll check it out.
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