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The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow

The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow
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The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow

 
SKU:  

8519556

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In her first two books, Sheila Davis classified the major song forms and enduring principles that have been honored for decades by America's foremost songwriters. Those books have become required reading in music courses from NYU to UCLA.

In The Songwriters Idea Book, Davis goes one step further, giving you 40 strategies for designing distinctive songs. You'll break new ground in your own songwriting by learning about the inherent relationship between language style, personality type and the brain.

  • You'll go, step by step, through the creative process as you activate, incubate, separate and discriminate.
  • You'll learn to use the whole-brain techniques of imaging, brainstorming and clustering.
  • You'll expand your skilled use of figurative language with paragrams, metonyms, synecdoche and antonomasia.
  • You'll be challenged to design metaphors, form symbols, make puns and coin words.
  • And, you'll learn how to prevent writer's block, increase your productivity and maintain your creative flow.
Over 100 successful student lyrics from pop, country, cabaret, and theater serve as role-models to illustrate the "whole-brain" songwriting process.

 
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Product Details
Author:Sheila Davis
Hardcover:250 pages
Publisher:Writer's Digest Books / F & W Publications
Publication Date:January 01, 1992
Language:English
ISBN:0898795192
Product Length:9.36 inches
Product Width:6.18 inches
Product Height:0.99 inches
Product Weight:1.1 pounds
Package Length:9.1 inches
Package Width:6.0 inches
Package Height:0.9 inches
Package Weight:1.05 pounds
Average Customer Rating: based on 11 reviews

Features
  • Published by F&W Publications 252 Pages

  • 240 pages, 6 inch. x 9 inch. by Sheila Davis

  • Artist: Sheila Davis


Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:4.5 ( 11 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 found the following review helpful:


5A wonderful source of inspiration and fresh perspectives  Aug 15, 1999
This book does exactly what the title says! I have to say it's one of my favorite books about the art and craft of lyric writing. Everyone wants to be original, and this book can be a very helpful tool towards that end. It's great book to help break you out of your normal way of approaching lyric writing, not to mention aid when you are blocked. I constantly look to it as a source of inspiration, and I like the way it helps to "de-mystify" the process. This book offers you different and fresh ways of approaching and treating your subject matter, techniques for coming up with ideas when you're really blocked, insight into how your personality type drives your manner of writing, plus exercises and examples to help get you going and inspire you. It also gives you "small craft warnings" about potential pitfalls and helpful tips on how to avoid them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who writes lyrics!

20 of 20 found the following review helpful:


5The cure for writer's block  Sep 30, 2003 By krebsman
Ever had writer's block? This book is the cure! Along with Davis' THE CRAFT OF LYRIC WRITING and SUCCESSFUL LYRIC WRITING, THE SONGWRITERS IDEA BOOK forms a brilliant trilogy that is essential for the person who wants to write lyrics. I'm rather surprised by reading some of the negative comments below. My guess is that those people merely leafed through the book without actually reading it. This book is NOT an easy read. It is not something that can be scanned. It must be read and studied very carefully. It is very important to understand part 2 of the book (pages 15 through 34) before moving ahead. This is the section wherein Davis analyzes the different types of the creative mind. In only a few short pages Davis introduces a lot of important concepts that need to be understood. The reader must take her tests and figure out which type he is. Then and only then is the book of value. I had to read part two several times before I really understood it. But once I had a firm grasp of those ideas, I found the book to be extremely valuable. Davis basically says that when one is blocked, that he needs to come at it from the other side of the brain. She then proceeds to give exercises that make it easy to access the unused part of the brain. While ostensibly for the lyricist, I think the principles can be adapted for any kind of writing. I think this is a great book and I am grateful to Sheila Davis for writing it.

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:


5Excellent for identifying your mind as well as song ideas  Jun 14, 2001 By J. P. Hillman "junplugged"
I refer to this book weekly and have owned it for 4 years. I spoke the author in 1997 and thanked her for her contribution to this subject. Her 3 books are 3 volumes of my songwriting bible. It is her books that finally gave me the ability to be happy with my own songwriting for the first time in my timespan of over ten years of not liking my lyrics. In this book, the author helps you identify your style of work and how it affects your first drafts. This info also has helped me in other parts of my thinking process. No other author, so far, has been as complete and detailed in their presentation of the songwriting process as Sheila Davis. Brilliant.

16 of 17 found the following review helpful:


5So many ideas, so little time  Feb 21, 2000
Sheila Davis is a magnificent author with a talent for inspiring people to pursue their dreams as lyricists. I found this book helpful and encouraging, and still refer back to it every chance i get, especially the techniques on escaping writer's block. Davis expresses her knowledge of writing lyrics and shares them with the reader in the least intimidating way. This is truly a must read for all songwriters.

9 of 9 found the following review helpful:


4Good for the money  Mar 21, 2004 By Dave C "davecorun"
I hear this book is some kind of industry standard book for other musicians, and I enjoyed it.

Like the other reviews said though, the 40 strategies are really 40 different types of songs you could write.

i.e. "the childrens song" "breaking up" "the christmas song"

The first couple of chapters describe what she calls "whole brain writing", and is actually very clever.

This book helped me immensly, I just knocked a star off b/c of the bad title and I think it's too short.

For the money though, you absolutely cannot go wrong!

See all 11 customer reviews on Amazon.com

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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