MOTUnation.com

Just my personal preference for the style of lyrics I'm trying to write at the present: I've quit using rhyming dictionaries. I used to have 3 different paperback rhyming dictionaries and spent a lot of time searching for words to rhyme with the words at the end of lyric lines. But the results I came up with did not seem very natural or "conversational". Eventually, I switched more to this strategy: If I can't find something pretty "normal" and "conversational" to rhyme with a line, I take a break and come back later and revise the line I can't rhyme with, sometimes just re-arranging the word order of the line until there is an "easy" rhyme for the ending word.

On the other hand, if I'm trying to write a humorous song with intentionally clever lyrics, then a rhyming dictionary is GREAT....The more unusual and far-fetched the rhyme is, the BETTER! But when I'm shooting for a sincere tone, I try to avoid unusual rhymes that draw attention to themselves and I feel I'm better off avoiding the rhyming dictionaries. As a cynic one said, "Once you learn to fake sincerity, you've got it made"..... This is probably the official unspoken motto of 99% of ALL politicians.....of all parties.....

So I'm not anti-rhyming dictionary. I think it just depends on the emotional tone of the song. I read a great article years ago about making sure you keep a consistent emotional tone for any piece of art you create. Whether you are trying to be humorous, sincere, tragic, sarcastic, ironic, melancholy, or grandiose; stick with the same tone for the whole piece, or you will confuse your "audience". In general I think that's a good rule. Of course, rules are made to be broken.....

Doug

Tidwells@aol.com wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 9:21 am Just my personal preference for the style of lyrics I'm trying to write at the present: I've quit using rhyming dictionaries. I used to have 3 different paperback rhyming dictionaries and spent a lot of time searching for words to rhyme with the words at the end of lyric lines. But the results I came up with did not seem very natural or "conversational".

Agree. I haven’t written any lyrics for a long time, but we found it usually worked better if you land on the words of the last line, then decide what to use in the earlier lines. Maybe that’s what you meant.

Bayswater said "Agree. I haven’t written any lyrics for a long time, but we found it usually worked better if you land on the words of the last line, then decide what to use in the earlier lines. Maybe that’s what you meant."

Actually, I didn't mean that, but that certainly is a great alternative method! So I think you are saying to come up with the last line of the verse, chorus, or whatever section you are working on, then back up to earlier lines that should rhyme with it and work on filling them in. Correct? That makes a lot of sense because you will have more control over the exact wording of the final "wrap-up line" of the section, which might be the most important, especially if it's the hook line. I'll have to try that!

That reminds me that the great Jimmy Webb said that you will improve your odds of writing great lyrics if the last word of the hook line/title line is a word with a LOT of common rhymes. You are less likely to "paint yourself into a corner".

Doug

Yes Doug. That’s what I was getting at. Best to have both lines perfect. Some writers seem to do that effortlessly. But if you have to deal with awkward lines, better to get the last one exactly the way you want it.

Sometimes, a rhyming dictionary would help me find the perfect line… and cause me to realize that I'd have to do a major rewrite to

I didn't see that coming, Mike! You have a point.

Doug

Tidwells@aol.com wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 2:40 pm stubbsonic said:
"Text-Edit is my go-to for ALL text tasks. I use a fixed-width font so aligning chords is easy, making "ascii images/charts" is also very doable."

Interesting, Stubsonnic! Is there an easy way to find which fonts are fixed width?

Doug

Courier or Courier New are my go-to's, but yea, you can type COMMAND-t to open the fonts window and there's a folder on the left side that says "Fixed Width" (well there is on my system, anyway).

Other fun facts about text edit. You can use commands to tighten or loosen the spacing of characters, you can use line spacing to adjust the spacing of lines.

There's also a sort-of "hack" to change the margins. I created a "stationary" file with 1/2" margins so I can fit lyrics and chords (or tabs) on one page, that wouldn't fit otherwise. I'm pasting those instructions below:

How to change margins in an RTF file in TextEdit

Here's how you can change the margins in TextEdit to your favourite size, so that you can use, for example, the whole space on a sheet of paper when printing.

First, save your document first as a Rich Text file (.rtf), if you have not already done this. To see the effect directly in your document, open it and enable under the Format menu the setting Wrap to Page for your document.

Next open up the TextEdit preferences, switch to the tab Open and Save and check on the option Display RTF files as RTF code instead of formatted text.

Open the document again and you will see the raw code that defines how the document look like. You want to look in the 4th row, where it says:

margl1440margr1440

This defines the left and right margins, thats what the 'l' and 'r' behind marg stand for: left and right.

Now to define customized top and bottom margins you have to add margt and margb, and similarly to before 't'=top, and 'b'=bottom. So add these after the given ones for the side margins, like this:

margl*margr*margb*margt*

Now you can set the margins how you like. You have to replace the stars with the correct number in Twips (1 Twip = 1/1440 inch). Here a few examples:
360 (.25 inch)
720 (.5 inch)
1080 (.75 inch)
1440 (1 inch)
567 (1 cm)
Finally save the modified document and change the preference settings back to what they were originally. Then open the document again and you'll have your custom margins.

Here is the setting for .5 inch margins:

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1404\cocoasubrtf470
{\fonttbl\f0\fmodern\fcharset0 Courier;}
{\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;}
\margl720\margr720\margb720\margt720\vieww12980\viewh8400\viewkind0
\pard\tx720\tx1440\tx2160\tx2880\tx3600\tx4320\tx5040\tx5760\tx6480\tx7200\tx7920\tx8640\pardirnatural\partightenfactor0

\f0\fs24 \cf0 blank template with .5" margins\
}

Thanks for the info, Stubsonnic!

Doug

Libre Office is free and AS-Native. That's what I use now; my rough draft lyric sheet look beautiful once I have the lyrics finalized. Until the next re-write, then they still look fantastic.

HCMarkus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:00 pm Libre Office is free and AS-Native. That's what I use now; my rough draft lyric sheet look beautiful once I have the lyrics finalized. Until the next re-write, then they still look fantastic.

Also, FWIW, Microsoft Office is getting dirt cheap these days. Cult of Mac regularly sends out emails with sales. Right now a lifetime license for Microsoft Home & Business 2021 for Mac is $34.97 on sale:

https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/micro ... -license-6

It's legit. I got it through these guys and I get notified fairly regular with updates.

James Steele wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 4:51 am

HCMarkus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:00 pm Libre Office is free and AS-Native. That's what I use now; my rough draft lyric sheet look beautiful once I have the lyrics finalized. Until the next re-write, then they still look fantastic.

Also, FWIW, Microsoft Office is getting dirt cheap these days. Cult of Mac regularly sends out emails with sales. Right now a lifetime license for Microsoft Home & Business 2021 for Mac is $34.97 on sale:

https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/micro ... -license-6

It's legit. I got it through these guys and I get notified fairly regular with updates.

Microsoft Office has a lot of functionality that LibreOffice does not — and it updates regularly without downloading again, something that Libra can't. The CoM prices for Office 2021 (Mac and Win) fluctuate between $19.99 and $49.99 so check often—these ae permanent licemses, not Subscription. Office 2016 still updates but there's an EOL date coming up soon. Office 2021 is the same with a later EOL that has not been announced—and it includes Teams, a free download if you need it.

What LibreOffice does well is convert just about any old WP or spreadsheet app including MacWrite, AppleWorks (WP and spreadsheet) etc. into Word and Excel docs. It cannot convert AppleWorks/ClarisWorks graphics docs, MacPaint or MacDraw even though it has a Drawing tool, now (just checked this now) — I found another solution for that. Likewise, it cannot convert FileMaker but the current version of FM still can. The iPadOS version is Collabora Office. Anyway, since Word and Pages can be opened on my iPhone and iPad, I no longer have a use for LibreOffice and am removing it. They keep asking for money everytime I log in and I do pay donationware and shareware so LibreOffice has actually been more expensive over the years.

I still don't understand using Text on a Mac instead of Pages (or Office). The formatting tips are nice but Pages can do all that and you can create Templates so that you only do this once. Pages is much easier if you're in the Apple 'verse with multiple Macs, an iPad and an iPhone such as I. Word can do this, also, but Pages is just there and defaults to iCloud.

mikehalloran wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 10:36 am I still don't understand using Text [textedit] on a Mac instead of Pages (or Office). The formatting tips are nice but Pages can do all that and you can create Templates so that you only do this once. Pages is much easier if you're in the Apple 'verse with multiple Macs, an iPad and an iPhone such as I. Word can do this, also, but Pages is just there and defaults to iCloud.

I use both Pages and TextEdit. And yes, Pages can do it all and much more. I use Pages when I need columns, shapes, and graphics; and more pro layout kinds of things.

I use TextEdit to create RTF's for three main reasons:

1. file portability: RTF's are generally viewable/editable/sharable on many platforms;

2. It is a simple, unbloated, yet powerful UI, and I'm very familiar with all the ins/outs;

3. The RTF format may have more staying power (knock wood). I made quite a few graphic type reference sheets in Appleworks which Apple gradually abandoned. I keep an old MacBook whereon I moved mountains to get a working version of Appleworks.

The reason I like my old version of Textedit for lyric writing is because of the lack of margins. I can drag a page as wide as my screen if I need to in order to hold all of the options I may type on a line. However, I noticed on my other Mac with a newer version of TextEdit that this is no longer the case....

Doug

Tidwells@aol.com wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 2:14 pm The reason I like my old version of Textedit for lyric writing is because of the lack of margins. I can drag a page as wide as my screen if I need to in order to hold all of the options I may type on a line. However, I noticed on my other Mac with a newer version of TextEdit that this is no longer the case....

Doug

The RTF format may have more staying power (knock wood)

GoogleDocs, Pages and Word can all Save As RTF. In addition, they let you set margins to the width of the screen.

You'll get a message when you print that you might be exceeding printer margins—do you want to anyway? Of course you do. Modern printers including my 15 year old HP and 5 yr old Brother will print as wide as the paper I have loaded.

I made quite a few graphic type reference sheets in Appleworks which Apple gradually abandoned. I keep an old MacBook whereon I moved mountains to get a working version of Appleworks.

A few years ago, I posted a solution to that called EazyDraw. It was a 2-step process where I had to open the files in the 32 bit version (EazyDraw Retro) over Mojave or earlier, Save and then I could open those files in the 64 bit version. Once I purchased the 64 bit, I had to email them for my free 32 bit license. that I received the next day. I just updated to the Ventura compatible build that they promise works over Sonoma as well.
https://www.eazydraw.com/

Is it as elegant as I would like? No. Do I have all the artwork I created since my Mac Plus in 1986? Yes, I do. There may be other solutions out there but I never found any.