Lyric Writing & the Rhyme Pad

Words that scan, land and mean something.

A full course on writing lyrics, built around the Songwriting Workbench - a lyric pad with a rhyme dictionary, live syllable counts and automatic rhyme-scheme detection, saved to your account.

Finding something to say

Before craft, content.

1. Specific beats general
2. Writing from an image, not a label
3. Point of view: I, you, they
4. The title as the main idea
5. Honest, not just confessional
6. Beating the blank page: prompts and limits

Using the Workbench

The tool, and how to work in it.

1. Opening a draft and saving it to your account
2. Live syllable counts in the margin
3. Reading the rhyme scheme letters
4. The rhyme dictionary: four kinds of rhyme
5. Keeping a word list for a song
6. Double-click lookup while writing
7. Set up your first draft

Rhyme and meter

The machinery underneath.

1. Perfect rhyme, and why it can sound cheap
2. Slant rhyme and assonance in modern writing
3. Internal rhyme
4. Multisyllabic rhyme
5. Stress, scansion and why some lines will not sit
6. Rhyme schemes and what each one does
7. Rhyme and meter check

Structure and revision

Shaping a lyric into a song.

1. Verse, pre-chorus, chorus and bridge: what each one does
2. The hook, and repetition without boredom
3. Prosody: making words and music match
4. Cutting: the line you love is often the problem
5. Reading it aloud, flat
6. Write a complete lyric
7. Lyric writing final