Chapter 0 - Excerpt (pages 1-2 of 4)

Chapter 0 - Introduction
“Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste” – Rolling Stones / M.Jagger, K.Richards
(well "wealth" is a relative word, and "taste" we'll leave open for now…)  

Every morning I wake up with a song running through my head.  Almost every night, I'll have a song resonating that lulls me to sleep.

The morning songs are always a surprise.  They are frequently songs that I haven't heard or played in years.  Yet the melody and often the more memorable lyrics are right there, having kept me subliminal company for all those years.

The nighttime songs are ones I generally consciously choose from my mental juke-box of several dozen favorites.  They are my "comfort food".

The power of a song can be considerable.  It may bring comfort to just one person.  It may provide relief to a handful of folks who are thinking: "Thank God, I thought I was the only one feeling that way".  It may provide joy or inspiration to many.  It may provide amusement, laughter, and brighten the day for many people.  It may become a "comfort food" for some folks, becoming one of their lifelong companions.  It may stop a war.  It may save the rain forests.  It may stop the polar icecaps from melting.  It may alter the orbit of Jupiter.  OK, here it is only the fourth paragraph and I've already gotten out of hand.  I'll try to watch that…..(yeah, sure.)

For me, if just one person tells me that one of my songs meant something, made them think, or provided some diversion from their concerns – that's all the victory I need.  Of course, the wealth that Mr. Jagger mentioned above would be a tolerable side-benefit.

So, I won't say that being a songwriter is a noble profession and as such is a "sacred trust".  I'll let others do it:

OK, maybe "sacred trust" is too strong.  But completing a song has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life.  I suppose it's like giving birth, without quite as much pain.  And if your "child" brings joy, respite, comfort, etc. to someone else – the reward recurs.

Am I reading the right book?
I hope so.  Reflecting on my decades of writing and the stacks of songs I've written, I'd come to the realization that maybe I had something valuable to share.  It started out to be an idea to teach a comprehensive songwriting class.  In thinking about that idea, I recognized that I would have to organize my thoughts, tips, experiences, and so forth, into a logical fashion.  I thought: "That's a lot of time and work. Sheesh, I might as well write a book!"  So I did.

This book is for you:

• If you have ever heard a melody in your head, or found an idea while plinking on the piano (that wasn't from another song).  If you've ever thought up or heard a few words and thought, "That'd be a great title for a song!"  If you've ever come up with some rhymes.  If you have always desired to try to write a song.
  

• If you're a beginning writer, and have written a few songs, and would like a "jump-start" to be more prolific, or just a better and more well-versed writer.
  

• If you consider yourself an intermediate songwriter (maybe written 15-40 songs), and feel like too many of your songs sound the same; or that either your lyrics or music skills are staler and weaker than you'd like.  If you just want some tips and insights into alternative ways that you can approach writing.
  

• If you've written music for songs, but are embarrassed by your lyric ideas and attempts.
  

• If you've written poetry or lyrics, and would like to know how to turn them into a song(s).
  

• Even if you consider yourself an advanced songwriter, there are tips and many free ideas in this book that may help you.  Do you ever feel in a rut, suffer from writer's block, wonder what other writers do?  Read on….
  I've written hundreds and hundreds of songs in many different styles, yet I still learned a lot in writing this; by analyzing my processes and methods and in interviewing other songwriters.

What this Book is Not:

This is not a book in music theory. It does cover some basics for non-musicians to learn a handful of chords, understand keys and key-relationships, and some melodic and notation basics. However, you do not need to be a virtuoso (or even a reasonably competent) musician to write a song.  Irving Berlin could neither read nor write music; and by all accounts had extremely marginal skills on the piano.  He'd write the songs in his head and a friend would transcribe them.  And he did quite all right for himself.

In these days, we have mini-recorders, music notation software and all kinds of other goodies to help minimally or non-skilled musicians get their songs out.  And getting songs out is what this book is about.

This book does not focus on the marketing and business end of the songwriting arena.  There are a multitude of books out there detailing the commercial workings of the songwriting industry.  But as you'll see it's largely a crap-shoot.  Even by following all the steps and rules on how to get a hit record, there's no guarantee that even a great song will become a hit.

We will touch on commerciality issues and procedures in several chapters (if in a somewhat desultory fashion).  For most topics, I'll identify and differentiate elements that simply make the song a "better" song, and those that would make it more commercially viable. If you're an advanced songwriter, I certainly recommend that you buy one of those marketing books also.  Or visit the library. 

What Is This Book then?

I have tried to make this as complete and thorough as possible on both the creative and mental processes of writing a song.  We'll go through all the elements of a song in detail, with equal attention given to lyrical and musical elements.  We'll discuss in separate chapters, all eight of the methods for starting a song.  This is an expansion of the age old question directed at songwriters – "Which comes first, the words or the music?"

We’ll go through all the choices you have regarding lyrical and melodic style, and touch on a number of musical genres.

What's Different in this Book?

I had developed a basic outline, fleshed it out with all my primary ideas, tips, techniques, anecdotes, quotes, interviews with other writers, etc.  Then I began to check out and read other songwriting books and websites.  As an aside, it was an interesting discovery to note how many of my initial ideas or techniques were shared by other writers.  I found at least a couple of "my" ideas in each source I looked at.

A couple of differences:

• I believe this book is more complete than anything else I've seen on the "writing" part of songwriting – as opposed to the business side.  It includes many subjects and elements that other books don't touch or explore very thoroughly.

• It's written in mostly layman's terms – and as such should be a great tool for aspiring through intermediate writers.

• I include many non-copyrighted examples of lyrics, melodies, chord progressions, etc. that I developed. These are all free for your use – as is or modified.

Probably the main difference is that most everything in the book is presented to spur your creativity and knowledge by exploring all aspects of an area of writing. I do include many sets of guidelines, not rules.  I have seen other books that are pretty dogmatic in what they want to teach you.  E.g.: - Your song has to follow the "accepted" pattern of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus.  Balderdash!  Baloney!  Poppycock!  B.S.!  Bunkum!  And a pound and a half of Hooey.

A songwriter has to be free to follow their inspirations, and then look at the guidelines (rules?) when they get stuck or extremely hungry......................(continued)