Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68169 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 182 pages

Customer Reviews

Never write another bad melody... unless you want to.
I got this book about 5 years ago shortly after it was released. It was the first book specifically dedicated to melody writing that I'd ever read but since then I've read a number of others (including Berklee Press' own Songwriter's Workshop: Melody). I must say, "Melody in Songwriting" is still the best book on the subject that I've seen!

It covers an awful lot of ground and goes into greater depth and detail than many other books on the subject of songwriting. In fact, this is a valuable resource for composers in any style of music, not only songwriters. Granted, beginners will likely feel a little intimidated at first, but I say, 'just reread it again', what you'll learn is more than worth the effort.

Melody in Songwriting includes about half-a-dozen well known songs as examples plus a greater number of unknown but insightful examples. This brings up the books' one weakness, which is that no CD of the examples is included so in order to hear and fully appreciate the given examples you'll need above average music reading and keyboarding skills. Perhaps Berklee Press will consider releasing a CD addendum to this excellent book.

Bottom line; if you read this book and do the exercises, you'll be able to write a reasonably good melody every time you sit down, even without inspiration. Add inspiration and you just may write a great melody.

Talent and Practice together
Some people believe that composition is a gift, a talent rather than practice. Melody in Songwriting proves that talent is not enough without practice and constant self-development. It teaches you to combine both your inner creative and your hard work. The techniques explained become creative tools to write your music. There are also some tunes extremely well analyzed with great info. It demonstrates the logical development inside the great hits. It is a must have book to improve your songwriting skills.

revealing and instructive
The author manages to put into words some of the most enigmatic aspects of songwriting. As far as I know, this is the one book that really goes to the core of melody and melodic structure from the perspective of popular music. From a scientific point of view there may be some parts that could be questioned, but correcting these would not neccessarily improve the book. It is a fine combination of craft and intuition and if one wants to learn more about writing melodies - this is as good as it gets today.