Rhyming Scheme
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A rhyme scheme is the
pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated l ...
of
rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
s at the end of each line of a
poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
or
song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...
. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rhyming scheme, from "To Anthea, who may Command him Anything", by Robert Herrick:


Function in writing

These rhyme patterns have various effects, and can be used to: * Control flow: If every line has the same rhyme (AAAA), the stanza will read as having a very quick flow, whereas a rhyme scheme like ABCABC can be felt to unfold more slowly. * Structure a poems message and thought patterns: For example, a simple couplet with a rhyme scheme of AABB lends itself to simpler direct ideas, because the resolution comes in the very next line. Essentially these couplets can be thought of as self-contained statements. This idea of rhyme schemes reflecting thought processes is often discussed particularly regarding sonnets. * Determine whether a stanza is balanced or unbalanced * Help to reinforce the feeling being expressed: If the writer wants to express stubbornness, they may use tight structured rhyme schemes, whereas if one was writing about feeling lost, then perhaps the stanza would only have one rhyme (XXAXXXA). A basic distinction is between rhyme schemes that apply to a single
stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
, and those that continue their pattern throughout an entire poem (see
chain rhyme Chain rhyme is a rhyme scheme that links together of stanzas by carrying a rhyme over from one stanza to the next. A number of verse forms use chain rhyme as an integral part of their structures. One example is terza rima, which is written in terce ...
). There are also more elaborate related forms, like the
sestina A sestina (, from ''sesto'', sixth; Old Occitan: ''cledisat'' ; also known as ''sestine'', ''sextine'', ''sextain'') is a fixed verse, fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The wor ...
– which requires repetition of exact words in a complex pattern. Rhyming is not a mandatory feature of poetry; a four line stanza with non-rhyming lines could be described as using the scheme ABCD.


Notation and examples

Notation used below: * ABAB – Four-line stanza, first and third lines rhyme at the end, second and fourth lines rhyme at the end. * AB AB – Two two-line stanzas, with the first lines rhyming at the end and the second lines rhyming at the end. * AB,AB – Single two-line stanza, with the two lines having both a single
internal rhyme In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme. Internal rhyme schemes can be denoted ...
and a conventional rhyme at the end. * aBaB – Two different possible meanings for a four-line stanza: ** First and third lines rhyme at the end, second and fourth lines are repeated verbatim. ** First and third lines have a
feminine rhyme Masculine ending and feminine ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. "Masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable. "Feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. Th ...
and the second and fourth lines have a
masculine rhyme Masculine ending and feminine ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. "Masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable. "Feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. Th ...
. * A1abA2 A1abA2 – Two stanzas, where the first lines of both stanzas are exactly the same, and the last lines of both stanzas are the same. The second lines of the two stanzas are different, but rhyme at the end with the first and last lines. (In other words, all the "A" and "a" lines rhyme with each other, but not with the "b" lines.) * XAXA – Four lines, two unrhymed (X) and two with the same end rhyme (A) Notable rhyme schemes and forms that use specific rhyme schemes: *
Ballad stanza In poetry, a ballad stanza is a type of a four- line stanza, known as a quatrain, most often found in the folk ballad. The ballad stanza consists of a total of four lines, with the first and third lines written in the iambic tetrameter and the seco ...
: ABCB *
Ballade Ballad is a form of narrative poetry, often put to music, or a type of sentimental love song in modern popular music. Ballad or Ballade may also refer to: Music Genres and forms * Ballade (classical music), a musical setting of a literary ballad ...
: Three stanzas of ABABBCBC followed by BCBC *
Balliol rhyme A Balliol rhyme is a doggerel verse form with a distinctive metre. It is a quatrain, having two pairs of rhyming couplets (rhyme scheme AABB), each line having four beats. They are written in the voice of the named subject and elaborate on that per ...
: AABB * Boy Named Sue: AABCC(B, or infrequently D) *
Bref double Bref double is a French poetic form consisting of 3 quatrains and a final couplet, making 14 lines. There is some debate about the rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually refer ...
: AXBC XAXC AXAB AB and other schemes, where "X" represents unrhymed lines *
Burns stanza The Burns stanza is a verse form named after the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who used it in some fifty poems. It was not, however, invented by Burns, and prior to his use of it was known as the standard Habbie, after the piper Habbie Simpson (1550 ...
: AAABAB(B) or AABCCCB * Canopus: ABABCBC *
Chant royal The Chant Royal is a poetic form that is a variation of the ballad form and consists of five eleven-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme and a five-line envoi rhyming or a seven-line envoi (capital letters indicate lines repeated verbatim). To add to ...
: Five stanzas of followed by either or (capital letters represent lines repeated verbatim) *
Chastushka Chastushka ( rus, частушка, , tɕɪsˈtuʂkə) is a traditional type of short Russian or Ukrainian humorous folk song with high beat frequency, that consists of one four-lined couplet, full of humor, satire or irony. The term "chastushki" w ...
: ABAB, ABCB, or AABB *
Cinquain Cinquain is a class of poetic forms that employ a 5-line pattern. Earlier used to describe any five-line form, it now refers to one of several forms that are defined by specific rules and guidelines. American cinquain The modern form, known as Am ...
: ABABB *
Clerihew A clerihew () is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem of a type invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person, and the remainder puts the subject in an absurd light or reveals som ...
: AABB *
Couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
: AA, but usually occurs as AA BB CC DD ... *
Décima A décima is a ten-line stanza of poetry. The most popular form is called décima espinela after Vicente Espinel (1550–1624), a Spanish writer, poet, and musician from the Siglo de Oro who used it extensively throughout his compositions. The dé ...
: ABBAACCDDC *
Double dactyl The double dactyl (poetry), dactyl is a verse form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal in 1951.Anthony Hecht and John Hollander, eds. ''Jiggery-Pokery, A Compendium of Double Dactyls'' (New York: Atheneum, 1967) Form Like the limerick (poe ...
: XXXA XXXA *
Enclosed rhyme Enclosed rhyme (or enclosing rhyme) is the rhyme scheme ABBA (that is, where the first and fourth lines, and the second and third lines rhyme). Enclosed-rhyme quatrains are used in introverted Quatrain, introverted quatrains, as in the first two s ...
(or enclosing rhyme): ABBA *
Englyn (; plural ) is a traditional Welsh and Cornish short poem form. It uses quantitative metres, involving the counting of syllables, and rigid patterns of rhyme and half rhyme. Each line contains a repeating pattern of consonants and accent know ...
: complex structure * "Fire and Ice" stanza: ABAABCBCB as used in Robert Frost's poem " Fire and Ice" *
Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
ian Ode: ABABCDECDE used in Keats'
Ode on Indolence The "Ode on Indolence" is one of five odes composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819. The others were "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode to Psyche". The poem describes the state of indol ...
,
Ode on a Grecian Urn "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819, first published anonymously in ''Annals of the Fine Arts for 1819'' (see 1820 in poetry)''.'' The poem is one of the " Great Odes of 1819", which a ...
, and
Ode to a Nightingale "Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem by John Keats written either in the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, London or, according to Keats' friend Charles Armitage Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats' house at Wentworth Place, also ...
. *
Klin KLIN (1400 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a news talk information format. Licensed to Lincoln, Nebraska, United States, the station serves the Lincoln area. The station is currently owned by NRG Media and features programming from Compass ...
: complex structure *
Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
: AABBA *
Mâni Mâni is a form of Turkish folk song in quatrains A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizat ...
: AABA *
Monorhyme Monorhyme is a passage, stanza, or entire poem in which all lines have the same end rhyme. The term "monorhyme" describes the use of one ( mono) type of repetitious sound (rhyme). This is common in Arabic, Latin and Welsh work, such as ''The Book of ...
: AAAAA... an identical rhyme on every line, common in Latin and Arabic *
Octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
: ABBA ABBA *
Onegin stanza Onegin stanza (Russian: онегинская строфа ''oneginskaya strofa''), sometimes "Pushkin sonnet'' refers to the verse form popularized (or invented) by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin through his 1825-1832 novel in verse ''Eugene O ...
s: with the lowercase letters representing
feminine rhyme Masculine ending and feminine ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. "Masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable. "Feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. Th ...
s and the uppercase representing
masculine rhyme Masculine ending and feminine ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. "Masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable. "Feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. Th ...
s, written in
iambic tetrameter Iambic tetrameter is a poetic meter in ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of ''a rhythm'', iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form , x – u – , , consisting of a spondee and an iamb, or two iambs. There ...
*
Ottava rima Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio. The otta ...
: ABABABCC * A
quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...
is any four-line stanza or poem. There are 15 possible rhyme sequences for a four-line poem; common rhyme schemes for these include AAAA, AABB, ABAB, ABBA, and ABCB. * "
The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...
" stanza: ABCBBB, or AA,B,CC,CB,B,B when accounting for internal rhyme, as used by
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
in his poem "The Raven" *
Rhyme royal Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing ...
: ABABBCC * ''The Road Not Taken'' stanza: ABAAB as used in Robert Frost's poem ''
The Road Not Taken "The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem by Robert Frost, first published in the August 1915 issue of ''The Atlantic Monthly'', and later published as the first poem in the collection '' Mountain Interval'' of 1916. Its central theme is th ...
'', and in Glæde over Danmark by
Poul Martin Møller Poul Martin Møller (21 March 1794 – 13 March 1838) was a Danish academic, writer, and poet. During his lifetime, he gained renown in Denmark for his poetry. After his death, his posthumously published fiction and philosophical writings were wel ...
. * Rondeau: ABaAabAB (capital letters represent lines repeated verbatim) *
Rondelet The rondelet is a brief French form of poetry. It contains a refrain, a strict rhyme scheme and a distinct meter pattern. The roundelay is a 24 line poem written in trochaic tetrameter. What they have in common is that they both only use two ...
: AbAabbA (capital letters represent lines repeated verbatim) *
Roundel A roundel is a circular disc used as a symbol. The term is used in heraldry, but also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of differ ...
: abaB bab abaB (capital letters represent lines repeated verbatim) * Rubaiyat: AABA or AAAA *
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry The Sapphic stanza is the only stanzaic form adapted from Greek and Latin poetry to be used widely in Polish literature. It was introduced during the Renaissance, and since has been used frequently by many prominent poets. The importance of the Sa ...
- various *
Scottish stanza The Burns stanza is a verse form named after the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who used it in some fifty poems. It was not, however, invented by Burns, and prior to his use of it was known as the standard Habbie, after the piper Habbie Simpson (1550 ...
: AAABAB, as used by
Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
in works such as "
To a Mouse "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785" is a Scots-language poem written by Robert Burns in 1785. It was included in the Kilmarnock volume and all of the poet's later editions, such as the ''Poems, Chiefly ...
" *
Sestain A sestain is a six line poem or repetitive unit of a poem of this format ( musaddas), comparable to quatrain ( Ruba'i in Persian and Arabic) which is a four line poem or a unit of a poem. There are many types of sestain with different rhyme scheme ...
: AABBCC, ABABCC, AABCCB, AAABAB, and others *
Sestet A sestet is six lines of poetry forming a stanza or complete poem. A sestet is also the name given to the second division of an Italian sonnet (as opposed to an English or Spenserian Sonnet), which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, succeede ...
: various schemes depending on the country *
Sestina A sestina (, from ''sesto'', sixth; Old Occitan: ''cledisat'' ; also known as ''sestine'', ''sextine'', ''sextain'') is a fixed verse, fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The wor ...
: ABCDEF FAEBDC CFDABE ECBFAD DEACFB BDFECA, the seventh stanza is a tercet where line 1 has A in it but ends with D, line 2 has B in it but ends with E, line 3 has C in it but ends with F * Sestuplo-nel-quintetto: Any quantity of stanzas of AABCCB, occasionally followed by either a repeating pattern of BCCB, or AA, plainly. *
Sicilian octave The Sicilian octave (Italian: ''ottava siciliana'') is a verse form consisting of eight lines of eleven syllables each, called a hendecasyllable. The form is common in late medieval Italian poetry. In English poetry, iambic pentameter is often use ...
: ABABABAB *
Simple 4-line Simple 4-line rhymes are usually characterized by having a simple rhyme scheme of ABCB repeated throughout the entire poem. Though usually simplistic looking, the songs can be very complex and are widely used today in most poetry and songs. Many p ...
: ABCB *
Sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...
, 14 lines: ** 4 + 4 + 3 + 3 lines: ***
Petrarchan sonnet The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets.Spiller, Michael R. G. The Developm ...
: ABBA ABBA CDE CDE or ABBA ABBA CDC DCD ** 4 + 4 + 4 + 2 lines ***
Shakespearean sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...
: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG ***
Spenserian sonnet The Spenserian sonnet is a sonnet form named for the poet Edmund Spenser. A Spenserian sonnet comprises three interlocked quatrains and a final couplet, with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. Three prominent features of this sonnet type were ...
: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE *
Spenserian stanza The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem ''The Faerie Queene'' (1590–96). Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'alexandrine' line in iambic ...
: ABABBCBCC, where the last line is an
alexandrine Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French '' Rom ...
line *
Spenserian sonnet The Spenserian sonnet is a sonnet form named for the poet Edmund Spenser. A Spenserian sonnet comprises three interlocked quatrains and a final couplet, with the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. Three prominent features of this sonnet type were ...
: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE * ''
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poem by Robert Frost, written in 1922, and published in 1923 in his ''New Hampshire'' volume. Imagery, personification, and repetition are prominent in the work. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost ...
'' form: AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD, a modified Ruba'i stanza used by Robert Frost for the eponymous poem *
Tail rhyme Tail rhyme is a family of stanzaic verse forms used in poetry in French and especially English during and since the Middle Ages, and probably derived from models in medieval Latin versification. Michael Drayton's "Ballad of Agincourt", first publis ...
: B lines appear intermittently *
Tanaga The Tanaga is an indigenous Filipino poem, traditionally in the Tagalog language. Format The Tanaga consists of four lines with seven syllables each with the same rhyme at the end of each line --- that is to say a 7-7-7-7 Syllabic verse, with an ...
: traditional Tagalog tanaga is AABB *
Terza rima ''Terza rima'' (, also , ; ) is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets (three line stanzas) with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rhy ...
: ABA BCB CDC ..., ending on YZY Z; YZY ZZ; or YZY ZYZ * A
tristich A tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem. Examples of tercet forms English-language haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem. A poetic triplet is a tercet in which all three lines follow the same ...
or
tercet A tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem. Examples of tercet forms English-language haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem. A poetic triplet is a tercet in which all three lines follow the same ...
is any three-line stanza or poem; common rhyme schemes for these are AAA (triplet) and ABA (enclosed tercet). The only other possibilities for three-line poems are AAB, ABB, and ABC. Multiple tercets can be combined into longer poems, as in the terza rima form. *
Traditional rhyme A traditional rhyme is generally a saying, sometimes a proverb or an idiom, couched in the form of a rhyme and often passed down from generation to generation with no record of its original authorship. Many nursery rhymes may be counted as tradi ...
: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH... *
Triolet A triolet (, ) is almost always a stanza poem of eight lines, though stanzas with as few as seven lines and as many as nine or more have appeared in its history. Its rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB (capital letters represent lines repeated verbatim) and ...
: ABaAabAB and others * Triplet: AAA, often repeating such as: AAA BBB CCC DDD... *
Trova ''Trova'' is a style of Cuban popular music originating in the 19th century. Trova was created by itinerant musicians known as ''trovadores'' who travelled around Cuba's Oriente province, especially Santiago de Cuba, and earned their living by s ...
: XAXA *
Villanelle A villanelle, also known as villanesque,Kastner 1903 p. 279 is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet repe ...
: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2, where A1 and A2 are lines repeated exactly which rhyme with the "a" lines


In hip-hop music

Hip-hop music and
rapping Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
's rhyme schemes include traditional schemes such as
couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
s, as well as forms specific to the genre, which are broken down extensively in the books ''
How to Rap ''How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'' is a book on hip hop music and rapping by Paul Edwards. It is compiled from interviews with 104 notable rappers who provide insights into how they write and perform their lyrics.Edwards, Paul, ...
'' and ''
Book of Rhymes '' Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop'' is a book by literary scholar Adam Bradley that looks at hip hop music's literary techniques and argues "that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today". ''The Dallas Mornin ...
''. Rhyme schemes used in hip-hop music include *
Couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
sEdwards, Paul, 2009, ''
How to Rap ''How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'' is a book on hip hop music and rapping by Paul Edwards. It is compiled from interviews with 104 notable rappers who provide insights into how they write and perform their lyrics.Edwards, Paul, ...
: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'', Chicago Review Press, p. 99.
*Single-liners *Multi-liners *Combinations of schemes *Whole verse
Couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
s are the most common type of rhyme scheme in
old school rap Old-school hip hop (also spelled old skool) is the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music and original style of the genre. It typically refers to the music created around 1979 to 1983, as well as any hip hop that does not adhere to contem ...
and are still regularly used, though complex rhyme schemes have progressively become more frequent. Rather than relying on
end rhymes A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
, rap's rhyme schemes can have rhymes placed anywhere in the bars of music to create a structure. There can also be numerous rhythmic elements which all work together in the same schemeEdwards, Paul, 2009, ''
How to Rap ''How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'' is a book on hip hop music and rapping by Paul Edwards. It is compiled from interviews with 104 notable rappers who provide insights into how they write and perform their lyrics.Edwards, Paul, ...
: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'', Chicago Review Press, p. 104.
– this is called
internal rhyme In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme. Internal rhyme schemes can be denoted ...
in traditional poetry, though as rap's rhymes schemes can be anywhere in the bar, they could all be internal, so the term is not always used. Rap verses can also employ 'extra rhymes', which do not structure the verse like the main rhyme schemes, but which add to the overall sound of the verse.Edwards, Paul, 2009, ''
How to Rap ''How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'' is a book on hip hop music and rapping by Paul Edwards. It is compiled from interviews with 104 notable rappers who provide insights into how they write and perform their lyrics.Edwards, Paul, ...
: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC'', Chicago Review Press, p. 103.


Number of rhyme schemes for a poem with ''n'' lines

The number of different possible rhyme schemes for an ''n''-line poem is given by the
Bell number In combinatorial mathematics, the Bell numbers count the possible partitions of a set. These numbers have been studied by mathematicians since the 19th century, and their roots go back to medieval Japan. In an example of Stigler's law of eponymy ...
s,. Reprinted with an addendum as "The Tinkly Temple Bells", Chapter 2 of ''Fractal Music, Hypercards, and more ... Mathematical Recreations from Scientific American'', W. H. Freeman, 1992, pp. 24–38. which for ''n'' = 1, 2, 3, ... are :1, 2, 5, 15, 52, 203, 877, 4140, 21147, 115975, .. . Examples: We find one rhyme scheme for a one-line poem (A), two different rhyme schemes for a two-line poem (AA, AB), and five for a three-line poem: AAA, AAB, ABA, ABB, and ABC. These counts, however, include rhyme schemes in which rhyme is not employed at all (ABCD). There are many fewer rhyme schemes when all lines must rhyme with at least one other line; a count of these is given by the numbers, :0, 1, 1, 4, 11, 41, 162, 715, 3425, 17722, ... . For example, for a three-line poem, there is only one rhyming scheme in which every line rhymes with at least one other (AAA), while for a four-line poem, there are four such schemes (AABB, ABAB, ABBA, and AAAA).


References


External links

* {{Wikiversity-inline, Rhyme schemes by set partition Rhyme Stanzaic form hu:Rímképlet