Song Building: Mastering Lyric Writing

by Marty Dodson, Bill O'Hanlon

Have you ever been frustrated when people don't get what you're trying to say in your song?Are you tired of waiting on inspiration to complete your songs?Are you not getting the response you hoped for from your songs?Is the songwriting process painful at times?Song Building will help you:•Write songs faster•Avoid getting stuck on second verses•Generate song ideas and lyrics without waiting for inspiration to strike•Make your co-writing sessions go faster and easier•Upgrade your song lyrics to make them communicate better to your listenerMarty Dodson, a Nashville-based songwriter, has written six #1 songs in Country, Rock, Pop, Bluegrass, Americana, Christian, K-Pop and J-Pop genres. His songs have been recorded by artist including Joe Cocker, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney, Billy Currington, The Plain White T's, Don Williams, Johnny Reid, Diamond Rio, Buddy Jewell, Lonestar, Billy Ray Cyrus, John Michael Montgomery, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ricochet, Craig Morgan, Tracy Lawrence, Saving Jane, Big and Rich, the Steep Canyon Rangers, Songs From The Road Band, and most recently, Blake Shelton. Over his 25-year career, he has written more than 7500 songs. His greatest musical accomplishment to date is knocking Psy out of #1 in South Korea with his song "Bounce" which went on to become the Asian and Korean Song of The Year. Bill O'Hanlon is the author of over thirty books, one of which, Do One Thing Different, was featured on Oprah. He lives part time in Nashville and is an aspiring songwriter.

Genres: Music

118 pages, Paperback

Published September 16, 2019

Reviews

[Jake Ignatowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love finding typos in books because it makes me feel cooler than the writers and editors even though I could never write a book! (Page 45, Ruby Tuesday is lacking a closing quote)

Some good tools to use here that I’ll almost definitely try to implement, but also feel like it’s too cut and dry. They say that there are no rules to songwriting before laying out a billion songwriting rules.
The difference between songwriters and artists is that songwriters know the rules in order to make hits, while artists know the rules in order to shatter them and develop truly groundbreaking products. I fear that this is a method to crank out as many conventional songs as possible, but would encourage readers to try a lot of the advice, keep what works, and experiment with diverging from the text.
Also, this is great advice for country, pop, and maybe some r&b; or in other words, extremely structured and conventional genres. For more experimental or loosely structured genres, like hip hop, jazz, hyperpop, or most other genres there are kernels of knowledge here, but is much to restrictive or minimalistic. Wish that would’ve been acknowledged more, but I understand why it wasn’t.
Looking forward to trying some of the advice out.

[SHARON JAMES · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and imformative!

I learned a lot and I would recommend this book highly to other songwriters or prospective songwriters who would like to write better.

[Clinton Hoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insights and it all makes a lot of sense. I'd have loved a few more exercises but would definitely read another of his books.