Writing Better Lyrics

This is for advanced singer-songwriters. Even though I have been writing for years, this book gave me a fresh perspective on writing lyrics for songs. If you follow the exercises in the book it is well worth it.

This is an excellent book which not everyone will like. If you want a book that you can skim through with lots of lists that you can quickly digest, put into use and immediately improve your songwriting, then buy something else like Robin Frederick's book "Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting: 126 Proven Techniques for Writing Songs That Sell", which is a great book in its own right: (http://www.amazon.com/Shortcuts-Hit-Songwriting-Techniques-Writing/dp/0982004001 ) . This book requires work, dedicated concentration and more than anything else, practice. You can easily live with this book for 6 months or more. Pattison's approach is very analytical and it deals only with lyrics and how to communicate them in a way that best transmits the emotional effect which the songwriter has in mind. The book goes far beyond Pattison's Coursera Songwriting course and his Youtube video lectures. I have found that for me, his techniques work best in rewriting my songs. There is so much here, that it is difficult to implement it all in the real-time process of songwriting. But once I have written a song, I can go back and apply his techniques to improve my songs. Especially interesting is his technique to use the 5 rhyme-types (perfect, family, additive/subtractive, assonance, consonance) and a rhyming dictionary as a search engine to brainstorm ideas to write a song from a concept or a title. I have never heard anyone else use this method, but I find that not only does it work for me, it also opens my ear to more easily find rhymes other than the perfect rhyme. Some people will not have the patience to work through this book, and for them, it will be a waste of money to buy. But I really like the book and it has taught me a lot of useful information to improve my songwriting.

Pat Pattison teaches the tools of lyric writing as a springboard to get your ideas down and fleshed out into something emotionally impactful, these techniques can be transcended into the genre of music you're working in. You start out writing from your senses, utilising appropriate form, gramma, structure and rhythm suitable for your songs narrative, then stacking the emotional obstacles of your subject, down to the finishing touches of your lyrics. The emphasis is on practice within the 50 exercises - you learn the value of this through your efforts, not what you read :) I would strongly recommend this book if you are struggling to write from your own experiences, fleshing out ideas (getting the story going) or even if you're like me an accomplished musician but ok/crappy lyricist. I used this book to assist with writing lyrics for other audiences - for personal subjects I am not familiar with. I found myself being able to flesh out multiple versions of scenes I was not there to witness personally but have the lyrics impact me emotionally when I read them back days later. I compared what I created from this book to what I wrote before, and the difference is night and day! I also now look at other peoples works and find better ways they could have written theirs! Strongly suggest writing notes down for the milestone learning points - found these handy when I write my own lyrics. Took me about 3-4 months to complete it, ranging from 2-10 hours a week, you may be able to do it faster. I spent a-lot of time on some key exercises which allowed me to walk away with useable sections I couldn't come up with before starting this book. It feels like an epic journey when you finish it, first book I ever read without skipping the end! Thanks so much Pat Pattison

This is a must for any song writer. I don't care how pro or amateur you are. It will also impact all poets and prose writers. There's a whole section where words come to life as sounds, conveying not only emotion, but cool techniques for echoing structural dissonance, nostalgia, unity. The book helped me start looking at rhyme in a whole new way, like a pallette of emotional and structural colors.

Ich brauche das Buch um meine Liedtexte zu verbessern.