Successful Lyric Writing: A Step-By-Step Course & Workbook

Sheila Davis' book The Craft of Lyric Writing really missed the mark. The book adopted a purely passive teaching approach. Excellent content, but no involvement by me, the student. Kind of like going to a piano lesson and listening to the teacher talk and play the whole time. So, this book attempts to address that deficiency. It's OK, but it seems that the publisher left the whole matter up to Sheila, who is clearly not an experienced interactive book writer. The modern interactive book learning style that I've experienced so many times is not something the authors create themselves. This is obviously an attempt by Davis to address the deficiency of her first book, but it misses the mark. The exercises are shallow, infrequent, and leave me wanting some more experiential reinforcement.

Quick delivery, and the book is in excellent condition.Going to use it in a music study group for songwriters.

Better than described!

Learning program with worksheets to keep you progressing is a great touch.

This book describes the various song forms and how to go about writing lyrics. It won't make you an overnight sensation. It just give you the tools to help you get thinking and writing. Great examples and tips!

This is the book that inspired to me to get all self reflective and all that good stuff for inspiration.

I've owned a copy of this for many years. It's a great breakdown of the song writing processes & offered me a multitude of concepts & angles that I'd never even considered. A good learning experience.Thanks Sheila Davis

Helpful for beginning songwriters, and inspiring for writers in a "slump". A+

I have worked through this book and have found it to be excellent for getting a grounding in the building blocks of songwriting.To those who have criticised it for teaching how to write average/cheesy songsa) they probably were too lazy to put the effort in and needed an excuse not tob) You have to start at the beginning, sophistication comes later as you start to develop your own chops. No point in starting work on some esoteric stuff if you don't know what AABA is.To just work through the chapters, listen to example songs, do the basic exercises etc takes many hours of focus. Songwriting requires a lot of hard work and discipline. Songs don't just come out of thin air ( except when they do of course :-)

I've got to agree with an earlier reviewer who said this book would help you write average lyrics. But it depends what you want the book for. If you are writing generic pop songs for others to sing, then it's probably got something to say. But as a method for writer/performers in general, it's pure cheese. Some of examples of good writing quoted by the author had me cringing. And, in one or two cases, some of the student examples she mocked as bad examples were more thought-provoking than her own bland, generic lyrics. But that's the crux: generic lyrics or individual lyrics. I know which I'd rather have. But then again, she's making money out of it and I'm not.

There is so much to be learned about writing lyrics and this explains many of the techniques and musical terms.

Most of the case studies are dumb and outdated for contemporary pop music but still there are some useful 101 information on the craft of lyric making.