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Title: Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison ISBN: 1-58297-064-5 Publisher: Writers Digest Books Pub. Date: July, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Pretty Good...!
Comment: This should NOT be your first lyric writing source. There are hundreds of books that describe rhyme, structure, and all that. (Sheila Davis, Jason Blume, IDIOT'S and DUMMIES's quickly come to mind when I recommend books for beginners.) No. This book is for writers who know the basics and want to GRADUATE beyond the elementary-secondary level. If you only study the chapter on metaphor, your eye and ear will sharpen spectacularly. (And there are 18 better chapters in the book!)
Although Pattison generally summarizes his discourse (my fave: the brief discussion on generating family [false] rhymes), he offers brain tingling assignments that lets you work through his observations at your own pace.
Again, this book doesn't try to be comprehensive in scope, but what it offers makes it an invaluable addition to the writers library.
Rating: 5
Summary: This is THE book for lyric writing
Comment: Lyric writing is doubtless the hardest aspect of songwriting (for most of us anyhow.) Believe me though when I say that this book is better than any other for helping you clear this most challenging hurdle.
I took two lyric writing courses with Pat at Berklee Coll. of Music and although I don't recall that this book was required, I bought it anyway. Pat is just too insightful not to have his ideas and suggestions spined out on my bookshelf.
First, he covers a technique called object writing. Without giving away too much, it is a brainstorming technique which shows us how to dig deeper into ours senses. This not only helps us write more powerful lyrics, but strengthens our imagination, insuring that fresh ideas abound. It is no exageration to say that this alone is worth the book's price many times over.
From here, he goes into methods of charting a lyric. Most of us tend not to think this systematically when writing (mapping out different rhyme-schemes and metaphor possibilities) but often times, it can help our writing develop an often lacking structure.
While these first chapters are arguably the meat of the book, the rest will prove valuable as well, going into metaphor, viewpoint, meter and the like. With grace and insight, Pat shows us continuously how to 'show, not tell' the listener your story, a lesson that many writers unfortunaltely never learn.
No matter what tools are missing from your lyric writing toolbox, Pat can help you find, polish and utilize them. Enjoy!!
Rating: 5
Summary: Best available for its type
Comment: Pat Pattison has produced what is the ultimate book on lyric writing. Actually, Pattison's exercises and techniques are valuable for any aspect of creative writing, from poetry to fiction.
He begins the book with the staple of his teaching, "Object Writing". Object writing is defined as writing on a specific thing - it can be anything from polyester to holding your breath - while incorporating as many senses as you can: touch, taste, smell, etc. The exercises last for 10 minutes, exactly, and you do it every day. He likens this to a pearl diver holding his breath and diving for pearls. Each time you hold your breath a little longer, dive a little deeper. It's the same with object writing. At first your writing will be awkward and fragmented - and that's okay. But as you do it on and on, eventually you will hit that vein, that underground river where your creativity rolls free and the words will pour out. As you continue it day to day, you'll hit this river more and more frequently and at greater depths, until eventually you'll just exist there.
Here's the amazing thing - it works. Object writing on a regular basis has improved my reading ability, my writing ability, my comprehension skills - my overall thinking. It gets your brain in shape and gets you in better touch with the powerful subconscious parts of your mind, where the majority of creativity happens.
From here he brings you more into the disciplined aspects of writing, showing you how to build a worksheet to write a lyric from. It involves object writing on your lyric title or concept and extracting anything useful from that, then using a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary to brainstorm even more ideas, and to place these on a worksheet to write from, giving you tons of related ideas at your fingertips.
He then discusses verse development, song forms, rhyme structures and meter. It goes very deep into these topics, and you can go as far as you want.
It's one of those books that you can continually read, diving into various chapters as you get stuck in different parts of different songs you are writing. I highly recommend this book for any aspiring lyric writers, even for composers who want a better understanding of the lyric writing process.
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Title: Songwriting: Essential Guide to Rhyming : A Step-by-Step Guide to Better Rhyming and Lyrics by Pat Pattison ISBN: 079351181X Publisher: Hal Leonard Pub. Date: 01 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Songwriting: Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure : Tools and Techniques for Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison ISBN: 0793511801 Publisher: Hal Leonard Pub. Date: 01 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: How to Write Songs on Guitar: A Guitar-Playing and Songwriting Course by Rikky Rooksby ISBN: 0879306114 Publisher: Backbeat Books Pub. Date: July, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Complete Rhyming Dictionary by Clement Wood ISBN: 0440212057 Publisher: Dell Publishing Pub. Date: 02 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Melody in Songwriting : Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs by Jack Perricone ISBN: 063400638X Publisher: Hal Leonard Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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