An unstable rhyme scheme, a really unstable rhyme scheme, one that really wants to move us forward, is something as simple as A, B, B, A. A, B, B, A. Thud, crash, bash, blood. Let's take a look at those three, two stable and one unstable rhyme schemes, sort of in action. Take a look at this lyric. Here we go. [music] Rock star, pop star, sports star, porn star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. [music] Rock star, pop star, sports star, porn star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. Now, what that does with the couplets, rock, pop, rock star pop star and then the next couplet, sports star, porn star, and then the rhythm sequence, what that does is it divides us into three units. [music] Rock star, pop star, sports star, porn star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. Rock star, pop star, sports star, porn star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. Now, if we turn that into an A, B, A, B rhyme scheme, something will change. [music] Rock star, sports star, pop star, porn star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. [music] Rock star, sports star, pop star, porn star BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. And now you hear that not as a unit of two, a unit of two, and then the rhythm thing. But now you hear it as a unit of four plus the rhythm thing. Now that unit of four is still quite stable. [music] Rock star, sports star, pop star, porn star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. So that's quite stable and it divides into four against one. Four, a group of four defined by the rhyme scheme. Stopped at the end of the fourth line by the symmetrical a, b, a, b rhyme scheme, and then we have that additional line that rhythm line, whatever that may be. Now let's try the a, b, b, a rhyme scheme with those same words, and watch what happens now. [music] Rock star, sports star, porn star, pop star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. [music] Rock star, sports star, porn star, pop star, BA da, da DEE da, da, da DAH, DAH, DAH. Now because rock star, sports star, porn star, pop star, the a, b, b, a, is unbalanced, is unstable, it doesn't create any kind of sequence unless, of course, you pan way out, you know? And, with the helicopter up above and take a look and say, oh my God, it's a retrograde. It goes a, b, b,a. But you don't hear retorgrades. In fact, when you hear a, b, b, a, you're most likely to want to add two more lines to a sequence that goes a, b, b, a, b, b or a, b, b, a, c, c to create some kind of balance that is not available in the a, b, b, a rhyme scheme which, by the way, has a name. It's called the in memoriam rhyme scheme. There's a history of that. In brief, there was a, a poem written by Alfred Lord Tennyson, called In Memoriam, in which he was eulogizing a dead friend. And he used that a, b, b, a rhyme scheme in his quatrains, and the a, b, b, a kind of left you with that kind of feeling. At the end of each quatrain, the same kind of feeling that you would use when you're talking about your friend who is gone now and we wish that he was still here. He was such a good man. And so, that whole sense of not quite landing, mimics the sort of eulogistic feeling or the sort of tone that eulogy will have of this longing for something, missing something. And so, ever since then, the a, b, b, a rhyme scheme has been identified with this poem because there was so much porosity involved in that rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme itself created that feeling of rather than. So the so the a, b, b, a is a really interesting place to go. Take a look at James Taylor's Sweet Baby James for a an application of the a, b, b, a rhyme scheme. So let's see how those work out. So here, we are in 3 to 4 time. Let's check out the rhyme scheme here. [music] We'll start with, you know, just something that you all know. Two, three, two. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. [music] So that of course, feels like, yeah, I really mean that. This is what happened to me. It's a fact, this is stable. [music] It's telling you the facts and telling you what amazing grace is capable of doing for you. Let's transform that now from this sound, me, found, see, rhyme scheme a, b, a, b. Let's transform it into couplets and see what happens. [music] One, two, three, two. [music] Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. I once was lost, but now am found. [music] I was blind, but now I see. Your love has saved a wretch a like me. And that feels again really stable but it gives us this pause in the middle of the ideas. It tells us, here's an idea and here's another idea. [music] Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. [music] I once was lost, but now am found. [music] I once was blind, but now I see. Your love has saved a wretch like me. So, both of those journey's are stable, but note that the a,a, b,b creates a bit of a democracy in this whole idea of the balancing line turning on brighter spotlights. So that in the couplets we have, instead of one big, big spotlight on the fourth line, we have probably equal brightness of spotlights on the second line and the fourth line. Both of them feel incredibly important. [music] Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. [music] I once was lost, but now am found. Mmm I once was blind, but now I see. Your love has saved a wretch like me. [music] Now, the difference between that and the a, b, a, b rhyme scheme is that the a, b, a, b rhyme scheme creates an avalanche of energy and momentum that finally lands at that fourth and last line and makes it the most spot-lit, the most powerful line of the sequence rather than having it share its, its power with the second line. Like this. [music] Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. [music] That saved a wretch like me. [music] I once was lost, but now am found. [music] Was blind, but now I see. So that this whole notion we've seen already twice of the balancing line turning on spotlights is really interesting here. Because the rhyme scheme that keeps us moving, moving, moving, moving, a, b, a, b creates much more power in that last line than the a,a, b,b rhyme scheme does. Now, let's take a shot at the a, b, b, a and see what, see what that look like. [music] Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. [music] I once was lost as I could be. [music] I was blind, but now I see. [music] My life has gone from lost to found. And it feels like I need something more. It feels like, yeah, but it's not this. [music] Amazing Grace, how sweet that sound. [music] I once was lost as I could be. [music] I was blind, but now I see. [music] My life has gone from lost to found. So, I hope you feel the difference in that it just feels like there's something more coming, there's another shoe to drop some place. And why would I do that, that way? Well, I may, I may be feeling a little unsure of my faith, I may have some doubt, I may, I may feel like but there is more I need to say that would, for whatever reason the rhyme scheme here in the face of an even number of lines. Equal length lines and an asymmetrical rhyme scheme now creates that sort of little echo, that little margin of yeah, instead of yeah, that is created by both the couplets and created by the a, b, a, b rhyme scheme. In this regard, go ahead and take a look at my website, www.patpattison.com. And on the left side, click on Pat's Parlour, and there you will find and article that I wrote called Same Song, Different Journey. It's a it's from a master class that I did in Perth, Australia. And it's, U in Parlour. In Perth, Australia where a woman brought in a song that started out, that had couplets all the way through. And what we did in that, in that master class was transform the song by using different rhyme schemes. And really, you know, that, of course that, that meant switching around some lines, but still, the basic content was the same. And yet, the journeys that the song took, the way that the ideas felt were completely different because of the way the rhymes came made these lines move. So, take a look at that and know that there are many other possible rhyme schemes to use that b, besides these obvious three of a,a, b,b a, b, a, b, and a, b, b, a, those simply we can treat as the paradigms. The, the sort of paradigms of stability and instability. And also, the paradigm of a fragmented a,a, b,b versus a through written a, b, a, b sequence. One that creates more pressure on the last line, and one that has equal pressure on the second and the fourth lines.
