Book Review of Surprising Rhyming
Brian Oliver has gathered together an amazing collection of words, everyday words, in a unique and surprising book. His book, Surprising Rhyming for Songwriters and Poets is a must have reference book for every songwriter, poet, and lyricists. If you have ever searched your brain for just the right word to rhyme with “orange” – this book will be your best reference guide.
Published in 2018, with 624 pages, Surprising Rhyming for Songwriters and Poets has become my favorite rhyming dictionary. Brian Oliver is an experienced music publisher and songwriter. He has worked with musical greats such as Neil Diamond, Janis Ian, and James Taylor, creating some of the most memorial songs in recent history. His other books include, How NOT to Write a Hit Song! and How NOT to Write Great Lyrics!
The purpose of this book is to prevent writers from making the most common mistake in rhyming by avoiding the over use of the expected rhyme. Using this book will help writers find suprising and unexpected rhymes to use in their songs and poems, adding depth and interest to every thing they write. In the “Introduction”, Brian Oliver talks in depth about a writer must take care not to use cliches or resort to old, worn out rhyming schemes. A poet should focus on the true meaning of their words and not only on the same spelling or graphic appearance of the words chosen.
Standard rhymes, such as cook/look/book are expected by the reader. As writers, we should focus on the imperfect and unexpected rhyme – words that sound similar, with the related number of syllables, but are unexpected and add interest to our work. Imperfect rhymes, such as girl/world, love/enough, rain/blame are unexpected by the reader but flow easily within the work, because the SOUND is close and relatative.
This rhyming dictionary is organized by what the human ear hears; the pitch, similarity and rhythm of related word pairs. Using this dictionary, to find words that rhyme, you look for words with similar sounds – not just similar spellings. The book is organized in five sections, identified by the vowel sounds of English words: A,E,I,O,U. These five sections are further organized by sub-vowel sounds: “ar”, “at”, “ay”, “ee”, “er”, “eer”, “eh”, “i”, “iy”, “oe”, “or”, ”oy”, “ow”, “oo”, “o”, “uh”, “urr”.
Yes, you can use took with cook (with the “ook” sound), but why not try took with kaput? You can also try mutt with pluck or bumblebee with wallaby. By using imperfect and false rhymes, words that are not spelled the same, do not look the same, but have similar sounds and rhythm, the words flow easily but the eyes do not see the rhyme until the ear hears it. So in your next poem, rhyme rhapsody with tragedy and empathy with praiseworthy, or alligator with generator, and keep the listener engage.
Book written by: Brian Oliver
Pages:624
Format: paperback
ISBN: 9781986114547 <OR> 1986114546
Price: $16.99 Amazon Prime
Copyright: 2018
Written by: Kristie A. Raburn, www.kristieraburn.wordpress.com
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