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 2^nd and 4^th. 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.

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
Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre is at the door

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

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