Essential Songwriter's Rhyming Dictionary: Pocket Size Book |
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Kevin M. Mitchell, Kevin Mitchell
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Pages: 304 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0882847295
Pub: Non Basic Stock Line
Pub date: 1996-10
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 282417
Reader Reviews:
A mixed review, good and bad (2/2 people found this helpful)
I have a bit of a mixed review about this book. It has its great points and then it has its bad points. To start with the good: If I had not already read a book with the points placed at the beginning of the book, they would have been great to look at. For anyone who has not read any books on songwriting, different rhyming patterns and structure, it has a really handy guide in the front. Second, it is TINY and so easy to carry around. If you just want to throw a guide in your handbag then this is a must have. It is absolutley full of useful rhymes!
For the not so good points. This book does not highlight 'near rhymes' like it states it does. For the most part, if I did not like any of the perfect rhymes, I would have to think of a near rhyme on my own and look for the perfect rhyme for the near rhyme I thought of. Since most people have a much easier time with perfect rhymes than near rhymes this was a bit dissapointing for me.
A personal suggestion from me: Get this book for the ability to carry it around easy, but grab a more concise book for home use. That way if you need to take your rhyming dictionary with you (as most of us songwriters do) you can, but you still have access to a book with more options at home.
Great reference for general song writing tips. (6/6 people found this helpful)
While this didn't necessarily have the greatest amount of information, and not all the words were cross-referenced back to each other all the time, it was still a very useful tool. Since it's small, you can carry it around easily. The abscence of more complicated words was rationalized by the fact that most songs would sound odd with scientific references and other such words in the lyrics. It only had the most used words, but there were plenty of them. However, I found the greatest value in this book at the very beginning within about the first ten pages. These pages provided an excellent tips section for song writing in general that has the best list of 10 useful tips I've ver seen. I lost this book, and I will probably buy it again (mostly for the tips section, but also because it is a great reference you can carry anywhere).
Good for jogging your memory, but nothing more (2/3 people found this helpful)
While this book has been incredibly useful in times of writer's block, is it not very thorough, nor in-depth. For instance, under "Ordinary," the author was generous enough to include common (English) names - Mary, Perry, Jerry, and Terry. What about Barry, Sherry, Larry, Carrie, Gary, or Harry? In addition, there are not very many entries, requiring you to mentally try to conjure the name of a rhyming word and look /that/ up. However, the format is decent. It's worth your money, if you don't plan to use it very often.
This book has been very helpful. (2/2 people found this helpful)
I have not used any similar reference, so I can't compare it to some other book, but it is very handy in writing songs or poetry, allowing some of my work to have more complicated rhymes.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Music, Stage & Screen -> Music -> Learning to Play, Write & Record Music -> Songwriting
Books -> Subjects -> Music, Stage & Screen -> Music -> General AAS
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
Books -> Refinements -> Condition (condition-type)