Musician’s Notebook

So last post we had done destination writing and external and internal columns. Now we’re going to get to the good stuff!

So once you have two columns of INTERNALS and EXTERNALS you will need to get some rhyme pairs from each columns. Maybe the first time you do this you might have a little trouble, but for now just try to limit yourself of the following options. A lot of times when we work of limited things it makes you’re pushing what you got to the limits. The shorter the destination writing the shorter the columns so thats why getting used to writing as much as you can on destination writing under 5 minutes is something you need to practice.

If you’re having troubles finding rhyme pairs you can do some of the following:

- Rearrange words from the sentences to rhyme with the next.
- Take out a thesaurus and use your generic adjectives into better rhyming words of the same meaning.
- You can probably mix two sentences together to rhyme with another two combined sentences. (I did this a lot)

Honestly, if you are so limited that you have like 6 sentences to work with, I understand write another destination writing. This time have in mind that you will want to do internal and external sentences but keep that pen moving.

So once you have rhyming sentences you now need to do some toggling and use a rhyme scheme.

Rhyme schemes come in a symbol for an example..

If you see a sentence 1 rhymes with sentence 2 but doesnt rhyme with sentence 3 or 4 but 3 and 4 rhyme together.. the symbol would look like this:

Sentence 1 A
Sentence 2 A
Sentence 3 B
Sentence 4 B

Extra note: Yes not all lyrics or even poems have to rhyme but the reason why rhyming is so great is because it helps the listener remember the lyrics, lyrics that rhyme and are remembered stay stuck in your head and songs that get stuck in your head are catchy and catchy songs in the songwriting market means commercial success and commercial success means $$$$$$$ and/or a great song. This is especially important to the chorus which needs to repeat a lot to be stuck in the listener’s head, because you want that listener singing that damn catchy song that is suck in your head even if they hate it. (Perfect Example: Jame’s Blunt’s “Your Beautiful”…ugh! I know, but you can’t deny the song’s success.)

Now here’s the deal and I will say I am not Mr. Know-It-All, but I will tell you in this case there are different rhyme schemes and I don’t know them all but you can do a google search and you will find them. They come in many forms in 4-6 line verses, I’m sure you can figure it out.

Now let’s say we have rhyme pairs and rhyme schemes… what’s next? Toggling..

Toggling is when you get those lines and instead of putting them in an order of rhyme schemes you get a formation of the internal and external lines and toggling them.

Example:

Sentence 1 is External
Sentence 2 is External
Sentence 3 is External
Sentence 4 is Internal

Yes, it gets tricky when you’re limited to your short options and you need to fit the rhyme scheme and the toggle. In fact, I found this hard but with practice you will get it. It was actually advised by Andrea Stolpe that once you get more in depth with this you should do all this like every week and as you get faster do it everything and you’re songwriting skills will not just accelerate, but your songs will be more efficient so imagine writing like 7 songs a week thats 28 songs a month and multiple that by 12. You will have more chances of writing a major hit. It’s all a skill and every skill REQUIRES PRACTICE TO MASTER!!

Again there are also plenty of toggling formations as well which you can find online as well. If you have a hard time finding one, just send me a comment and I will make you a list of the most common togglings, I just want you guys to try and do the research because we can all share the great sites and some might be easier to learn than others. The best way to learn is multiple information from many sources because they are all explained differently.

You ask why do I want the last sentence to be an internal?

I will answer that next time but what I’m going to do is I’m going to post an example of one of my class assignments so you can get a good idea of how I did this, step by step. Remember, during destination writing, don’t worry about spelling just crank those words out because remember this isn’t an english class assignment. This is you digesting ideas and only you need to know what’s on there for your verse. Once you got the song written is when you make sure your actual verses and choruses are nicely polished.

“Bedroom”

The walls are silent especially with the television off. Fan blows cold air into the direction of the futon bed. The same bed that smells like sex. The silver walls shine even through its old paint. The computer stands still on the desk on its own. I lay down on the futon bed the one in which you’re laying next to me. Bodies mended naked with each other. I am glowing inside as we begin to fall asleep. I am attached like a hook in the hole holding ourselves together. The redlight on the ceiling shines down on us like an artifical moonlight or a sun. Your tongue still slides down my neck and damn its been turning me on. Your so goddamn b eautiful with your blue black hanging down to the lips I love to kiss.

External
—————–
The walls are silent especially with the television off
Fan blows cold air into the direction of the futon bed
The same bed that smells like sex.
The silver walls shine even through its old pain
he computer stands still on the desk on its own.
Bodies mended naked with each other
The redlight on the ceiling shines down on us like an artifical moonlight or a sun.
Your tongue still slides down my neck
blue black hanging down to the lips

Internal
—————–
I am glowing inside as we begin to fall asleep
I am attached like a hook in the hole holding ourselves together.
The redlight on the ceiling shines down on us like an artifical moonlight or a sun
damn its been turning me on
Your so goddamn b eautiful
I love to kiss.

* So you saw here how I did some stream conscious writing just being able to pull out anything I can about the bedroom and what I can think about in setting a scene. Remember, you want to listener/reader to be put into this scene so paint a great picture, be a director to this AWESOME movie scene that draws them in the movie and makes them feel like your characters. You see what you do here is actually set a scene using external and internals and then you get those sentences in each these columns and this is what you get so far.

Now moving on, from the two columns and the DW (destination writing). We go and construct the verse.

The redlight on the ceiling shines down on us. E <-External X <—- (X means that this sentence will not rhyme with any of the sentences)
Like an artifical moonlight or amber sun. E <—- external A<— (WILL RHYME WITH LINE 4)
Your tongue still slides right now to my neck. E <—- external X <—- (X rhymes with nothing)
And damn its been turning me on. I <— internal A <—-(BAM!! Line 2 and 4 rhyme perfectly)

So the verse is …

“The redlight on the ceiling shines down on us.
Like an artifical moonlight or amber sun.
Your tongue still slides right now to my neck.
And damn its been turning me on.”

Look over this for reference and start doing your own DWs and all the steps I mentioned so far!

Next Time, I will discuss how to use all this and apply it to song structure with this method to write some powerful songs.