M2M Day 310: How to extract the most value out of your natural tendencies
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For September, my goal is to continuously freestyle rap for three minutes.
Today, I reviewed the footage from the past week of my freestyling practice sessions, and have found particular sets of rhymes that I naturally tend to lean on more heavily.
These sets of rhymes are centered around the self-referential and very hip motifs of “I am a good rapper” and “Watch me as I flow so good”. While these sentiments aren’t the most profound, they make for reasonable freestyle filler.
In particular, I seem to be relying on six main sets of rhyming words. Here’s how I’ve been using them…
1. “I’m spittin’ it, hittin’ it, rippin’ it, flippin’ it”.
I usually break out this set of rhymes if I want to add in a quicker, punchier line or two.
2. “You knowing, I’m flowing, never slowing, keep it going”
Ironically, I use this set of rhymes as a flow maintainer, giving me time to think about where I want to take the freestyle.
3. “I’m spittin’ it smarter, hittin’ it harder, taking this rhyme farther”
This set of rhymes has more space to breath, helping me slow back down from a fast section.
4. “I’m taking it faster, after, all of the laughter…”
I keep finding myself using some line like this, but still haven’t figured out how to make this set of rhymes make sense.
5. “Let me teach you a lesson, did I mention…”
This setup has potential, but I can’t seem to resolve the line to anything substantial.
6. “At the end of this challenge, I’ll be spittin’ with talent, on Jimmy Fallon”
These rhymes are a bit softer, but with a little vowel-bending, it’s no problem.
Since I naturally find these six sets of rhymes while I freestyle, rather than immediately expanding into new sets of rhymes, I should first further flesh out my options within these sets. That way, when my instincts naturally kick in, and I find myself repeating some version of these lines, I’ll be able to keep them going for longer.
So, today, I headed over to wikirhymer.com and found additional rhymes that I could use in each category. (Note: My natural ability to bend vowels seems to be pretty good, so softish rhymes are fair game.)
Here’s what I’m working with now…
1. “I’m spittin’ it, hittin’ it, rippin’ it, flippin’ it”.
Hittin’ it, spittin it, whippin it, flippin it, rippin’ it, shippin’ it, grippin’ it, drippin’ it, licorice, ridiculous, conspicuous, gibberish, hit or miss, meticulous, hideous, triplets,
2. “You knowing, I’m flowing, never slowing, keep it going”
Flowing, going, knowing, showing, slowing, throwing, blowing, owning, Boeing, snowing, bowling, rolling, patrolling, strolling, hoping, scoping, stolen, trolling
3. “I’m spittin’ it smarter, hittin’ it harder, taking this rhyme farther”
Smarter, farther, harder, father, darker, parlor, martyr, armor, charmer, farmer, partner
4. “I’m taking it faster, after, all of the laughter…”
Faster, laughter, pastor, after, blaster, master, plaster, disaster, rafters
5. “Let me teach you a lesson, did I mention…”
Mention, lesson, blessing, dressing, messing, testing, texting, guessing, pressing, impressing, depressing, obsessing, professing, progressing, flexing
6. “At the end of this challenge, I’ll be spittin’ with talent, on Jimmy Fallon”
Talent, challenge, Jimmy Fallon, talons, patent, combatant, scavenge, gallons, Woody Allen, Alvin, Calvin
The next step is to practice freestyling within each category over and over, hopefully strengthening the synapses between the already wired words and the new rhymes.
I’ll try to post a video tomorrow demonstrating exactly this.
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