There are many possibilities that imperfect rhymes can add to your lyrics. Imperfect rhymes are rhymes that have the same vowel sound, but a different consonant sound. after the vowel sound. The words “dark” and “heart” are imperfect rhymes for that reason. This is different from perfect rhymes that have the same consonant sound after their vowel sound, such as “lap” and “map.”

Depending on how close the consonants are to the end of two words, imperfect rhymes can be used for letters that are complete, balanced, and happy, or for letters that are not those things. You have to trust your ear when it comes to how close imperfect rhymes sound to perfect rhymes. Let’s see examples.

Before we met I was in the dark

Now there’s a spotlight in my heart

“Dark” and “heart” are pretty close. They share the “r” before their final consonant, and the “k” and “t” they end in are hard sounds that go together quite decently. So using this rhyme instead of a perfect rhyme, for a happy lyric, feels appropriate. Especially considering that when these lines are sung, the vowel is likely to be sustained longer than when we pronounce them, so less attention will be paid to the consonant the words end with.

You may be thinking that you want to stick to only the perfect rhymes for complete and balanced lyrical ideas. But the truth is, if you start to introduce imperfect rhymes into your choices, you’ll open up a much wider range of rhymes to choose from, giving your lyrics a much better chance of being interesting and not clichéd.

On the other hand, take a look at these lines:

I just want to escape

I hope you feel the same

“Escape” and “same” are pretty far imperfect rhymes. The vowel sound connects them, but that’s all. The consonantal sounds that follow the vowel are not at all alike. The plosive “p” in “escape” is nothing like the nasal “m” in “same”. So this rhyme works well for a lyric that involves the idea of ​​longing. The rhyme leaves us wishing for a more definitive rhyme. This is good, because it plays with what the lyrics say.

Imperfect rhymes can range from having almost complete feeling to having almost shaky feeling, and anywhere in between. On top of that, we have additive and subtractive rhymes, where a word ending in a vowel rhymes with a word ending in a consonant. These types of rhymes are truly intermediate types of rhymes. They usually don’t feel too full, but they don’t feel too unbalanced either. So use them accordingly.

Let’s see another example:

look at all i’ve seen

All over the world I have traveled

then you left me

And now I feel broken

In this case, “seen” and “yo” are subtractive rhymes (since the consonant is subtracted at the end of the second word), so they’re sitting on the fence in terms of connecting the two words. “Roamed” and “roken”, on the other hand, are quite different. The “m + ed” sound in “roamed” is quite different from the “k + en” consonantal sounds in “broken”. . It creates some dissonance between those two lines, which is appropriate. The lyrics are about feeling broken, and the rhyme supports that idea. At the same time, the words “seen” and “I” aren’t creating as many waves as they are subtractive rhymes. They are just relaxing, waiting to “roam” and “broken”. “to really deliver the bad news.