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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Jimmy Webb is one of the greatest songwriters of the last 40 years, and he's a pretty good book author too. Tunesmith is really three books in one. It's a book about the technical craft of songwriting: rhyming, song structure, melody, chords, polishing. It's also a book about the business of being a songwriter: getting published; getting played; getting paid. And finally, it's an autobiography. Predictably, the strongest sections are on the craft of songwriting. The sections on the music business are dated (the book was published in 1999) but still interesting in a "my, how quickly the world changes" way. The autobiographical sections are mercifully brief.
(I am saddened by the steady decay in the quality of book editing and proofing. On p274, Webb gives us "flaunt" where he clearly should have written "flout". Sigh.)
(I am saddened by the steady decay in the quality of book editing and proofing. On p274, Webb gives us "flaunt" where he clearly should have written "flout". Sigh.)
Sometimes irritating, always interesting. Tips and tricks from the guy who left the cake out in the rain then went up, up and away in a balloon before giving Glen Campbell a singing career.
Absolutely, completely, ridiculously, inarguably the greatest book about songwriting ever written. Webb's one of those "behind the scenes" master songwriters of the twentieth century whose name most people have never heard but whose songs everyone has heard - "Wichita Lineman," "Didn't we," "By the time I get to phoenix," "The moon's a harsh mistress," and classic groaner "MacArthur Park" only scratch the surface. This isn't some sort of "how to write better songs" workbook for aspiring songwriters, but rather a scholarly and informed exploration of the true craft of songwriting. At the same time, it's readable and humorous enough that non-musicians will get a kick out of the anecdotes and dissections of songwriters from Gershwin and Porter to Cobain and Corgan.
This is one of those books that will be on my shelves forever as a definitive volume on the subject it sets out to cover. I aspire to write songs and I've written a few but I'll admit I've been slow if not stale for a few years but this (and I was inspired to read it by the Sodajerker podcast which really deserves a shout-out for inspiring me as much) really got me in the mood to put a lot more time into the process again. There are a couple of chapters on music theory which I'll have to read a couple more times to even understand let alone take on board, and the last few chapters are more about actually *being* a songwriter and I'm sure they'll have more value in future too… but his ideas about lyric-writing and substitution in basic chord structure and just his ideas about being a creative person are utterly indispensable if, like most creative people, you frequently find yourself consumed by self-doubt. He doesn't just blow smoke up your ass, he's honest… but *god* does he make you wanna do better…