This blog entry is a set of notes that I made on the book: Pattison, Pat (2009) Writing better lyrics: the essential guide to powerful songwriting, Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, …
Writing better lyrics (notes on Pattison’s book) Read more »
Brenda Ueland (1891-1985) was a journalist, editor, freelance writer and teacher of writing. She seems to have been a highly creative, generous-hearted, free spirit. Amongst her accomplishments, she was knighted by the King of Norway, and set an international swimming …
This blog entry is part of the series on book summaries. It is the notes that I made as I read through: Furia, Philip (1990) Poets of Tin Pan Alley: a history of America’s great lyricists, Oxford University Press, New …
How do you learn songwriting from scratch? What should be included in Lesson 1 of a songwriting course? The answers depend on where you are starting from, where you want to get to, what kind of journey you are interested …
I have long believed that singers become better interpreters of a song if they understand how that song is put together. That means studying the lyrics just as text, ideas, rhetoric, rhyme, metaphor, form, unfolding of character and narrative, message, …
Tunesmith: inside the art of songwriting (notes on Webb’s book) Read more »
I have introduced Stephen Sondheim in my blog article ‘Stephen Sondheim on Songwriting (1)‘. This piece is a set of notes that I made on the book: Mark Eden Horowitz (2010) Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions (2nd edition), Scarecrow Press. …
Sammy Cahn (1913-1993) was a lyricist (who, like Oscar Hammerstein, preferred to call himself a lyrist) who collaborated successfully with the composers Saul Chaplin, James van Heusen and Jule Styne. He was nominated for 26 Oscars, and won four, for ‘Three Coins …
If we want to understand something about songs, how they are written, and therefore how we should sing and perform them, who can we learn from? The musical dramatist Stephen Sondheim is superb craftsman as a lyricist, composer, songwriter, musical …