Reddit mentions of Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting

Music Theory for the Road audiobooks have been teaching me a lot. It cost me $20.

The Books "Chord Progressions for Songwriters", and TuneSmith - Inside the Art of Songwriting by Jimmy Webb

Also, Earmaster for ear training has helped me enormously.

Happy cake day!

You’ll want to learn music theory. A pretty standard book that I read was called Tonal Harmony. It may be a little heavy, but it will give you the underpinnings of Music theory in a comprehensive way.

With that, songs usually have lyrics, which that book doesn’t explain. In fact, I’m in the middle of a pretty good book on songwriting called Tunesmith It really gets into meter, rhyming, etc. that goes into how lyrics are put together with quite a few examples.

Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting by Jimmy Webb

Established chord progressions can help, otherwise use chords + ears.

Theory is just theory, its more of a tool, however, it can help you understand other songs which may help you understand what you have in your head.

I would recommend reading about songs from a songwriter perspective. Not a technical guide. Well, they can help get quick patterns together, but more of the art.

For example Inside the art of songwriting is on my reading list. (although the cover is ridiculous). Songcrafters Colouring Book is an excellent book about taking your creative ideas / raw output and crafting in it into a better song.

As long as it sounds and feels good then it is good. Lyric writing has is nicely explained in songcrafting colouring book. Technical books I have read on lyric writing have been dire.

Try to establish a groove early on and work to that, that can help tie everything together.

Good luck.

Someone mentioned to me this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Tunesmith-Inside-Art-Songwriting-Jimmy-Webb/0786884886


Really good book if you want to know how to write.

I don't know what you're into, and you might consider his material kind of hokey, but you might want to give Jimmy Webb's book "Tunesmith" a try. It's been years since I've read it cover-to-cover, but I liked it. But then again, I like Jimmy Webb. It covers more than just chords, and I will admit that the lyrics to the "sample" song running through the book are definitely hokey.

Also, someone else mentioned Lou Reed in this thread. While the Velvet Underground had a lot of simple chord progressions, check out the song Candy Says -- it has more than four chords in the verse and does some interesting changes, e.g. from Fm# to F to B, which serve the melody well but might not seem intuitive if you're just trying to come up with chord progressions. It eventually lands in a simpler progression (two chords repeating at the end of the song), but the variety in the verses helps give the song personality.

There are some great resources available on songwriting.

Check out "Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting" by Jimmy Webb
http://www.amazon.com/Tunesmith-Inside-Songwriting-Jimmy-Webb/dp/0786884886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452090486&sr=8-1&keywords=tunesmith

Or anything by Pat Pattison of Berklee College of Music.

Pattison has a great online course on Songwriting offered by Coursera (coursera.org) that they offered free, but it looks like it's not free now. Keep an eye out, though. It may be free again sometime.

I know how you feel. My worst habit, by far, is neglecting to finish pieces that I start. I'd rather be like you, and have at least a collection of strong drafts. Rather than a box of tapes, filled with briefly compelling fragments.

I think it was Jimmy Webb (in his book Tunesmith, which I highly recommend) who said, in so many words, "If writing a song is easy, then you're doing it wrong."

😮 Nice! Tell us more about your work. Is there any interesting book about your craft? I’m reading Tunesmith about songwriting. Any equivalent on producing?