Product Description

Whether you are new to songwriting or have written hundreds of songs, "The Songwriter's Journal" should be within arm's reach whenever the mood to write a new tune strikes. It is packed with the fuel you need to ignite the imagination and provides you with more ideas than you could ever hope to write about. With hundreds of entries designed specifically to spark the muse within, the book should reside on every songwriter's bookshelf or desk. It includes songwriting exercises, chord progressions for new songs, word association exercises, ideas to write new songs about, note sequences for new songs, power words to include in your lyrics, items that belong in every songwriter's toolkit and much more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #571395 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-19
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

The Muse's Muse, July 2007
In reviewing songwriting books, it is important to ask the question: "Will this one help someone become a better songwriter?" In this case, it should make anyone a more prolific songwriter, which will provide the opportunity for improvement. It should help tickle a sleeping muse awake, and that can't hurt.

Customer Reviews

Good for Amateurs
What I like: there are pre-built music beds and melody lines to experiment with - that's my weak point
What disappointed me: there are pre-built song subjects for each week - talk about cliche!
This book is good if you want to be a songwriter but are not sure how to write songs. Or why. Or what about.

It's a Songwriter's Toolkit
This is not a book you read; it's a book you do. It's a great workbook for songwriters, with sections for every week of the year. It includes places to jot down ideas, word games to inspire lyrics, chord progressions and melody lines to play with, and space to write a whole song, plus lists of "power words," quotes from famous songwriters and information about songwriting resources. I just wrote my first week's song, and I'm having a hard time keeping myself from reading ahead to next week. In fact, if I didn't have other things to do, I could just cuddle up with this book for the winter and write one song after another. Or I could use it whenever I feel stuck. This book would work well for poets, too. It's so much fun.

Cornucopia of ideas
The subtitle, "songwriting ideas and inspiration," accurately describes this book. As one reviewer commented, it is rambling and not "organized." Each of the 52 2-3 page sections is an independant, random unit of ideas and things to spark ideas and images to make a song from. (A shotgun approach to writing one song a week.) I like the idea. Within each "week's" pages, it is completely random. The chord progression, tips, themes, etc. are unrelated to each other. I think the purpose is that if even one bit strikes you, it is worthwhile; which I agree with. I like the idea very much. I found the scenarios to be in the blues style of songwriting; some people may like that, some may not. Scattered among the nuggets of ideas and inspirations were helpful recommendations for best low cost acoustic guitar, best introductory music recording software, best drum machine, and a list of other recommended books (I already own one of those recommended books and found it excellent, which gives me confidence in the author's other recommendations.) This book does not address what to do with your songwriting ideas and inspirations. It does not cover anything like song structure or how to turn ideas into actual lyrics. To be fair, that is not the stated purpose of the book. I think this would be an excellent book for breaking out of writer's block. Then get a songwriting book (which the author kindly provides recommendations for) to turn the ideas into developed lyrics.