Product Description

The only complete guide to composing lyrics and music - and getting your songs on the air. It covers everything aspiring songwriters must know to be successful, from creating memorable lyrics, composing melody, and crafting song and structure to collaborating, finding a publisher, and recording a song.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #672748 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 120 pages

Customer Reviews

Or: "How to write a country based slice of AOR"
The problem with this book is that it is written by an American songwriter, for American songwriters who are aiming to pitch songs to American publishers to be sung by American singers, to earn a place on the Billboard chart.

Some of the points made are valid (lyrics should scan well, be written in the vernaculer and make sense, melody should be interesting, songs should have a hook and get there quickly etc) and some are not (a hit record should not be any more than two and a half minutes long - erm, since when?). However, the song examples that are used are unknown outside of America. For those of us whose Americana is gained through the media and from a fortnightly trip to MacDonalds, rather than as a way of life, the whole book is slightly alienating - indeed, the first example song in the chapter on lyrics is a thing called "Maybe It Was Memphis", which used similes of things I have no experience of being like other things that I have no experience of, in a place I have never been to, or even seen except for TV footage of Presley's grave.

Perhaps the book would have been more accesable had it used the work of more internationally recognised songsmiths as examples (Lennon/McCartney, despite being songwriting heavyweight world champions, only get a passing nod in the section on titles).

As it is, it is an easy read, and contains various points worth taking on board. However, it will not teach you how to write a song that will appear on any Radio 1 playlist because the style of songwriting that Molly-Anne Leikin is advocating (literate and melodic and what's wrong with that) may be artistically correct, but does not appeal to todays single buying public. Imagine pitching anything by Michael Bolton to a 21st century UK based publisher, and you get the picture.

quick and straight to the point
This book is one of the most informative book on songwriting I have read I could not write a song before i read it but know i can write good quality songs for fun!