Songwriting: A Complete Guide to the Craft

by Stephen Citron

(Limelight). An invaluable sourcebook covering finding a song concept, choosing a form, writing lyrics, rhyming, constructing a melody, adding harmony, selecting rhythm, and much more. "Today's aspiring writers are fortunate indeed to have such a splendid guide." Dory Previn

Genres: Music, Writing, Nonfiction, How To

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you can get past the fact that the author judges all music against Cole Porter and Steven Sondheim and the fact that some of the information is very dated, there is a lot of good advice in this book regardless of what style songs you are writing. Just go in knowing that Stephen Citron's personal opinions on music probably won't be your own. The good news is that all of the technical info he shares is very helpful.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author refers to a lot of songs in both the front portion and back portion. The first half of the book deals with lyrics, second half with music. The section on rhythm is perhaps most interesting to me as he goes through the rhythms of several genres.

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Presumes that the reader already knows a substantial amount of music theory, which is unfortunate because I picked up the book to learn more theory in the first place. An obscene amount of time is spent on "contemporary" (i.e. 40s-80s) music history and how to write lyrics, where the space should have been spent elaborating on more difficult musical concepts. And plus the writer is insufferably old. All of his examples are American songbook standards that most readers today would likely not be familiar with. At the end of the book he brushes upon contemporary styles such as hip-hop and reveals that he really does not understand that times, as evidenced by his hatred of disco, hip-hop, metal, and any genre that basically doesn't include Gershwin, Rodgers-Hart, and Cole Porter.

[Agnieska · Rating 2 out of 5]

How can a title claim to be "complete" if it scorns entire genres of music? Like many old, white men, Stephen Citron completely overlooks the contributions of women and people of color. He describes the 70s as being an era of “obsession with feminism.” He later goes on to claim that disco is distasteful (a genre of music with a lot of African American artists). Additionally, Citron dismisses rap and hip-hop as illegitimate forms of art. Meanwhile, he heavily praises music from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. You know, Frank Sinatra type stuff. Oh, and if you don’t know anything about music theory, forget it; half the book won’t make any sense to you. The only positive aspect I can think of is that there’s some good information on form.

[Marv · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you write songs FIND THIS BOOK!

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun approach in how the process and elements are broken down

[Luigi · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent text, very detailed.

[Duane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought long ago. Not helpful creatively. Mostly approaches technical issues in creating a song.

[Graham Okely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written by a knowledgable person. Easy to read and look up example songs on Spotify of course.