Tool: RhymeZone
I’m writing today’s blog post from TMEA 2023 in San Antonio, TX. I have been presenting sessions at this conference since the late 1990’s, and it is always one of my favorites. I will be posting a Recap of my time here tomorrow. One of the things I love about coming to this show is that it also hosts the TI:ME Pre Conference - and many of the top music technology presenters are in attendance. I always learn something from my colleagues - and yesterday was no exception.
I attended Meaghan O’Connor-Vince’s session on Hip Hop in the Music Classroom, which was sponsored by MusicFirst. I have known Meaghan ever since she was an independent study student of mine years ago. She is an amazing music educator who teaches at Barnstable High School on Cape Cod and I love her approach to teaching music. You can check out what she does on her website - be sure to click on the Music Technology Projects and Resources tab. During her session, Meaghan showed a number of fantastic resources to help teacher infuse hip hop into their teaching. She covered 4 projects that she does with her students, one of which has them write their own song - without loops. One of the attendees at her session asked her how she helps students write lyrics, and she pointed to a website that was brand new to me - RhymeZone. I immediately clicked on it. This is a PERFECT tool to use in ANY songwriting project. It is super simple: enter a word, click SEARCH, and you get categorized rhyming results: number of syllables, almost rhymes, and examples of how others have rhymed the same word. You can also enter short phrases and you get even more detailed results, including category, ratings and popularity. WOW - sometimes the simplest ideas are the best!
I entered Hip Hop into the search engine, and this is what I got:
Aside from rhymes, there are other tools, including Lyrics and Poems, Near Rhymes, a Thesaurus, mentions, phrase rhymes and definitions.
Music teachers should bookmark RhymeZone today and use it with any song writing or lyric writing assignments. The site was not built for music teachers at all, but it is perfect for helping students rhyme words. Best of all - the site is 100% free and doesn’t require any type of login.
Thank you Meaghan for pointing this one out!