Customer Reviews

Melody in Songwriting: Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs

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This book has a lot to offer. However, if you do not sight read (and play piano)and already have a understanding of musical theory. The exercises in this book will be long an tedious to go through. I understand musical theory, I don't normally play piano trhough sheet music. This book would have been better with a CD. A word of advice, if you play guitar and only use TAB notation THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU, save your money

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.

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.

This is a good book, well written , and clearly laid out. It offers the reader a methodical approach to writing better melodies by showing you that good melodies are the result of contrast, balance and fluidity. It also covers harmony and its relationship with melody giving examples from popular songs. The book is a refreshing change as it does exactly what it says on the cover; it looks at melody within song writing, and approaches it as a serious subject to be studied and learned. If like myself you get slightly lost every now and then, read the chapter through, go back and read it again, its really worth it because once this stuff begins to sink in, you go away and see what he's talking about as soon as you turn on the radio or listen to your favourite music. I say a refreshing change because it differs from other song writing books that I have recently purchased with titles such as "How To Write That Hit!" etc which seem to spend about 3 pages telling you how to write songs then divide the rest of the book between telling you how to "Pitch that song in the market" or patronising the reader with little cute stories about how they wrote their half a hit that came out 200 years ago "Oh and then Bruce, as in Springsteen, called up asking how the song was coming along, it was all so hilarious". We don't want cute stories , we want guide lines to the craft of writing beautiful songs. Lastly, in this book, Perricone does not attempt to suggest that technique is more important than inspiration, indeed he says that both work hand in hand, each one necessitating the other. As an aspiring young song writer myself I have often heard this debate between those that believe in the dreaded technique, and those that believe in inspiration alone. The argument on the one hand goes, the decline of the modern pop song is due to the fact that writers no longer learn their craft, long gone are the golden years of song writing (Berlin, Porter, Rogers and Hart etc.). On the other hand, I've heard lots of song writers (none of whom ever got a publishing deal!) saying "you dont need to learn technique, inspiration is what I use". often said with a kind of religious conviction. The example people in this camp always wheel out is the fact that, yes neither Lennon nor McMartney read or wrote music. What these people seem to fail to comprehend is that both Lennon and McCartney were almost musical scholars when it came to the popular songs of their time, analysing, dissecting and pinching sections of these songs. Anyone who's ever read "Revolution in the Head" by Ian Mcdonald (a fantastic book!) will tell you so. My own point of view is consistent with that of Perricone. Having read his book I feel that the knowledge of a little technique has only propelled and projected my creativity and to me at-least it seems preposterous that song writers should think that they need not learn a little craft. Try and become a painter or a carpenter with out a little technique. Now after years of heart ache, not knowing how to develop that little melody in my head and putting the guitar down after five minutes to make a cup of coffee, with a little know how, I am writing better songs. At least my girlfriend thinks so!!! Go and create people! We need good songs to wrap up our memories. Best wishes, jack.

THIS is the book that songwriters should be reading in order to truly craft STRONG melodies...Jack has both an instinctive and a trained sense of how to use the structures of rock, classical, blues and jazz songs to craft great pop melodies.

From the first two notes of the first chorus I'd ever heard of Jack's songwriting, I knew he knew something special about how to make those note-by-note choices that make the difference between monotony and magic.

And, lucky us, he shares that knowledge.

I've read lots of books related to songwritings and I must say, that, this book is one of a melody builder book. It will give you clearer and more focus and guidance for a step by step melodius song result. It's one book for everyone who would like to know that such a melody or a melody for a song is a soul, and each soul will match sometime only for one song alone.

Jack Perricone is a great admirer (and practitioner!) of the pop song, and in this book he outlines successful strategies for songwriters to get back IN the groove, or to break OUT of their writing "ruts". Granted, this material may seem rather "heady" at times, and less intuitive than we like to think creativity is, but when you need a jumpstart to get back on track, you'll be glad to have this assortment of options at hand. Although this book is nominally about Melody only, the author includes all other song components as they interact, and provides a fresh perspective and analysis on how and why certain songs reach us and connect with the public. There's as much respect shown toward rock and blues songs as more traditional pop, and a lot of very valuable stuff for writers of ALL styles of songs.