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31 of 33 found the following review helpful:
 The Best Lyric Book Thus Far Aug 24, 2001
By Michael Brandmeier
Great Book!! I've been writing songs for years and have had songs in major FILM/TV projects and more. But I like to always try and better myself and talents. This is helping me to do so. I believe it is a MUST for beginners and it can truly help rekindle and enhance the approach of a veteran songwriter as well. Its a great read too with very practical, insightful tips on how to have fun and bring your inner workings into the light and onto paper in song form... I wouldn't take the time to review it if I didn't feel so strongly about it. It is FAR better than any I've TRIED to read before on the topic. Thanks Pamela!!!! Peace, Michael Brandmeier
16 of 16 found the following review helpful:
Great resource for an aspiring staff writer Jan 20, 2007
By anon-new-yorker
Ms. Oland provides helpful advice for the person wishing to write and market commercial songs. She gives tips on becoming familiar with language, building vocabulary, and learning popular song structures. She also dissects her own writing process, step by step, for the reader.
Later chapters deal with the challenges posed by collaboration, strategies to deal with criticism, and the music business.
This book is primarily for the commercial lyricist, not the musician or the artist who writes for self-expression. Ms. Oland is of the opinion that a lyricist shouldn't write too much from personal experience, and that a commercial song should make the audience feel good because "no one wants a loser." But some of the most sincere music, which ended up being "commercial," was written out of angst (Alanis, Nirvana). Oland's term for this kind of music is "living room hits." (In her defense, she does state that when an artist writes this type of song for himself, the song may become a hit.)
Ms. Oland also mentions that she is a much stronger lyricist than melodist, and although she does mention using "dummy melodies," musician-lyricists might find a different method than Ms. Oland's.
However, this book does include much wisdom and helpful information culled from years of experience.
20 of 21 found the following review helpful:
Tricks of the Trade Apr 28, 2003
By Lisa-catherine Cohen
Although I am a veteran and successful lyricist and thought I had nothing more to learn about this form of my art, I was amazed at how many "tricks of the trade" she gave me that I'd never even thought about. Pamela Phillips Oland's new, revised edition of her first book is so chock full of tasty little details that I found myself inspired with new song ideas on almost every page - which is why it took me so long to finish it. By now, it is underlined and starred and filled with margin notes and tabbed with so many colors, it looks like a pocupine!
Everything from setting up my writing environment to setting up the deal with my collaborator UP FRONT, to helpful hints about my great starts that fill my journals, was useful. We all get into a sort of groove that can so easily become a rut that simply adopting a new approach - that Oland suggests many of - like reading the dictionary or seeing with new eyes a character trait in someone you know well, can cause one of those wonderful light-bulb ideas to pop up over your head!
I always love hearing other songwriters' anecdotes about how songs we've all heard on the radio came to be.
The book is so well laid out that when I sit down to write, I sometimes just open it at random, read a box or an example of one of her lyrics - and the process by which she completed it - and that gets me going.
It will be so helpful to the fledgling songwriter, too. I've given it to my 14-year-old, guitar-playing, songwriting nephew who says he loves it. And since I gave it to him, I can see a definite growth in his ability to express his feelings more clearly now in his lyrics. There is a craft to writing lyrics that takes years of devotion and attention to develop and perfect.
Thank you, Pamela, for acknowlwdging what REALLY goes into perfecting this craft and writing it all down in so arganized a way!
- Lisa-Catherine Cohen, double-platinum lyricist (ASCAP) Lisa-Catherine.com
11 of 12 found the following review helpful:
The Gospel of Songwriting! Jan 21, 2003
I have been a songwriter "on the side" for a number of years, and this book gave me the confidence and information I needed to make the move to full-time. I now make a career of writing songs and, even better, I'm earning a living doing it! The best thing about this book is that it's not a bunch of dry factoids about A&R pitches and recording demos. Sure, there's tons of useful info about all that, but it's so much more than that, too! I have heard this author speak, and she's AWESOME - she really knows her stuff, and she's absolutely inspiring. You'll totally get a kick out of her stories (check out the one about her first song - hilarious! not that mine was any better, mind you). And watch out all you poets masquerading as songwriters (you'll see what I mean if you read it!). I don't want to ruin the book by talking about any more specifics, because it's a really fun read. I definitely recommend this book if you want to get into songwriting, and it's also helpful to established musicians who want to start writing their own songs. (One of my musician friends did just that, and her songs are fantastic now. She definitely needed the help, though.) BUY THIS BOOK if you want to get into the music industry. Seriously.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Try It--You Might Surprise Yourself Jan 08, 2003
By Gladys Hogen
I am a school librarian and first heard about this book when I read the rave review in Library Journal. I ordered it for the school library and was amazed at how many high school girls were putting themselves on the waiting list to borrow it, often sitting together with their rhyming dictionaries and writing tablets, seeming to be having the time of their lives with this book. About a year later, I saw the book just staring at me from the shelf in in the Borders in my neighborhood and the curiosity overtook me. I bought it for myself. I had never really thought I had a talent for writing lyrics, so I started following the steps for writing cynically at first, then just cautiously. Before long, I was going through it with the same enthusiasm I had seen in the teenagers. Before I knew it, I was thinking differently, wondering how to use a catchy phrase as a lyric or how to turn an experience into a song. Words took on a new quality for me once I read this book-and I have read a LOT of books! Well, I might only be a high school librarian, but there's nothing wrong with having a hobby, right? I think I am going to buy a second copy of this to give as a gift to my niece. I will feel like I have done something very special it makes her as happy as I have been in "discovering" this book. I hear this author has a new book coming out soon. I can't wait!
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