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| | Home How to Write Songs on Keyboards - A Complete Course to Help You Write Better Songs Book/CD (Softcover) | |
|  | |  | | | How to Write Songs on Keyboards - A Complete Course to Help You Write Better Songs Book/CD (Softcover) | | | | | SKU:
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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | How to Write Songs on Keyboards helps both keyboard and guitar players find and develop interesting keyboard chords and chord sequences that they can use in their own songs. Rather than trying to teach intricate pieces of music, the book breaks things down into a simple style, concentrating on basic chords and ideas that can be gradually elaborated to create more complex structures. A visual system that virtually eliminates the use of standard music notation allows guitarists who are used to using guitar tablature feel totally at home. Songwriting issues are also analyzed, including key changes and writing songs in minor keys. The straightforward style of How to Write Songs on Keyboards will have musicians writing on a keyboard with ease — even if they never have before. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Rikky Rooksby | | Paperback: | 256 pages | | Publisher: | Backbeat Books | | Publication Date: | October 01, 2005 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0879308621 | | Product Length: | 11.1 inches | | Product Width: | 8.6 inches | | Product Height: | 0.65 inches | | Product Weight: | 2.15 pounds | | Package Length: | 10.9 inches | | Package Width: | 8.5 inches | | Package Height: | 0.7 inches | | Package Weight: | 2.1 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 13 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 13 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 found the following review helpful:
 Four stars only because it lacks the power of How To Write Songs On Guitar. Nov 12, 2006
By Chris
"the most passionate music/film fan alive."
I am a rabid follower of Rikky Rooksby's music theory/songwriting books, as he is a constant provider of quality songwriting techniques, ones that legendary bands and underrated singer-songwriters use in nearly all of their songs.
If you're familiar with Rikky's debut "How To Write Songs On Guitar", you'll know that that book is absolutely essential if you're an aspiring or even advanced songwriter.
This book, titled the same with the word "Keyboards" instead of "Guitar", lacks a lot of what made Rikky's first book a milestone.
It's nice having a CD to listen to as you learn these tried-and-true techniques, but the examples are far too short. They're not really explained exceptionally well as the examples and citations in "...Guitar."
Aside from this minor gripe, I still find this book incredibly useful, as I do all Rikky's books. The only reason I'm giving it four stars instead of 5 is because it's not "...Guitar."
As I wrote in other reviews of Rikky's books, I think his writing and overall book quality is declining, as it seems that "Guitar" was so popular, that Backbeat started releasing one or two books by him per year, which, may be a bit impatient, but maybe not. In my opinion, it just seems like he's rushing through explaining these songwriting and chord progression techniques, where with "Guitar" he clearly explained them and gave TONS of pop song examples (pop as in Jeff Buckley, The Smiths, Simon & Garfunkel, etc. not pop like Britney).
Still, it's Rooksby. I own all of his books, at least the ones with this cover theme (huge capitalized titles).
In my opinion, Rikky's books, in overall quality are (1 being the best):
1. How To Write Songs On Guitar (wouldn't it be great if the 2nd edition included a CD with a LOT of the examples? That would rock)
2. The Songwriting Sourcebook
3. Chord Master
4. How To Write Songs On Keyboards
5. Arranging Songs
6. Lyrics
7. Riffs
8. Melody
I hope Rikky continues to make useful songwriting books, and I hope he gets back to the quality from his first four.
17 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Excellent book for beginners to get the creative juices flowing Nov 14, 2005
By Carmella Diforte
This is not a book on how to play the piano, even though learning chords is probably more than half the battle, this book does everything it says it does, it teaches you the most common chord structures and progressions in most popular music. I sat down at my keyboard and played one of the progressions, they are very effective, and I had heard them before in other songs. The notation is very intuitive for the none music reading songwriters-to-be. It shows the keyboard visually on the page with dots on the keys to be struck for the chord. All in all this is an excellent book, with a nice cd letting you listen to the progressions to get a better idea of them, one motto from the book is not too worry about what chord you are playing, if it sounds good.
11 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Changed my music tremendously! Oct 17, 2006
By Jeff Parker
"Jeff Parker"
When I found this book and looked inside, I was blown away! Finally a book that shows you just what you need to know without drowning you in theory and WITHOUT being geared towards guitarists! I make electronic dance music and found this book (along with a chord wheel) to be an amazing resource to improve your songwriting techniques. I went from 2-chord songs with no discernible structure to amazingly complex songs with dramatic chord changes!
Since I use a computer sequencer along with my keyboard, programming these chords into my sequencer then playing them back while improvising melodies on top of them has been absolutely amazing. I really think if you're making electronic dance music you can benefit a lot from this book, but to a larger extent any songwriter could find something here that makes it worth the purchase price!
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
clear and simple Oct 20, 2008
By A. L. Maciel
"leicam productions"
I like that there is a track for each subject, although some of them not as clear as i would've wished for. It gives you the perfect tools for writing a song, and most importantly how to get there faster. If you are a beginner, it will give you a solid base, if you are advanced, it gives you a good "review" on how certain chords can give you "that feeling or mood". I would recommend it to anyone..
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Part of daily practice regime May 27, 2011
By Luis del Valle
"Luis del Valle"
If studied faithfully, this course can transform your ability to look at chord progressions/harmonic structure objectively, and also highlight a mood in a song which can form the direction of the overall song. When you consider that 80%+ songs are originally written on keyboard (including Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run; the entire album), this book is a mainstay in any songwriters library. Having studied music formally, it is the overall understanding of harmony (chords) which will either make or break a song, or piece of music. In my daily practice regime (2-4 hours daily) I spend about 30 minutes with this book hashing out tried and true examples of chord progressions which I can use for songs (at this writing, 45 songs). The added ability and strength of this book is that it will increase your curiosity for music theory, without bombarding you, eg. learning your keys to write some interesting songs, ie. a song written in G major is going to sound completely different in mood if it's transposed to Bb. For anyone willing to spend the time studying this book, the return in the command of harmonic theory and songwriting prowess will be a reward worth waiting for. 10/10.
See all 13 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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