Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting [Paperback]

Joel Hirschhom (Author), Joel Hirschhorn (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Complete Idiot's Guide | Publication Date: April 19, 2001

The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to Songwriting will be the one-stop resource for all aspiring songwriters to learn: how much musical training you need (if you have none), how to put together the basics of a song in various popular genres (country & western, hip hop, Latin, adult contemporary, pop), as well as for different industries, such as television and film, and where to get the great ideas for what makes a hit and how recurring hit makers got their Midas touch. You'll also learn where and how to find collaborators, choose a publisher, and find an agent, how the Internet is impacting the world of songwriting (i.e., MP3 and Napster), and the best way to set up a recording studio in your own home and choose the best equipment.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Song has been a part of people's culture since the beginning. From classical and rock and roll to country and jazz-- there are hundreds of thousands of budding and established songwriters burning to write the next great hit. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting is the one-stop resource for all inspiring songwriters to learn how much musical training is needed, how to put together the basics of a song for various popular genres, how to tailor songs to different industries (TV and film), how to get great ideas, where to find collaborators, publishers and agents and how the Internet is impacting the world of songwriting.

About the Author

Two-time Oscar-winning songwriter Joel Hirschhorn began his musical career as an RCA recording artist. As a key member of the Brill Building pop era, he wrote, with Al Kasha, a series of million-selling rock singles. Some of the artists who have recorded and performed his songs include Elvis Presley, Maureen McGovern, Aretha Franklin, The Chambers Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Mama Cass, Roy Orbison, Sheena Easton, blues legend Taj Mahal, Julian Lennon, and Charlie Rich.

Hirschhorn's Hollywood years opened with songs from such films as The Cheyenne Social Club (featuring a collector's item duet pairing Henry Fonda and James Stewart) and Jack Lemmon's The April Fools. He later won Academy Awards for "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure and "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno. His score for Pete's Dragon and his song "Candle on the Water" received Oscar nominations. "I'd Like to Be You for a Day," his title tune from the Jodie Foster film Freaky Friday, was nominated for a Golden Globe. He received Tony nominations for two Broadway musicals: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Copperfield, starring Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Hirschhorn's career includes work as a scorer and orchestrator for prime-time specials starring Billy Preston, Frankie Valli, and Marilyn McCoo. His songs have been spotlighted in such motion pictures as Eyes Wide Shut, The Ice Storm, and Slums of Beverly Hills and television shows such as South Park and The Simpsons. He also scored several seasons of Knots Landing.

The most recent of Hirschhorn's six books is the best-selling Titanic Adventure. He is presently a concert and theater critic for Variety.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 1 edition (April 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028641442
• ISBN-13: 978-0028641447
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joel Hirschhorn authored three popular books relating to songwriting, one to film and wrote an autobiography. Additionally, he co-wrote a book with his wife, Jennifer Carter, about her Titanic adventure. His awards, nominations and the list of artists' successful recordings of his songs make him a credible authority in the field of songwriting for film, Broadway, television and popular artists.

Hirschhorn won his first Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song in 1973 for "The Morning After" from "The Poseidon Adventure." His second Oscar for Best Music, Original Song came with "We May Never Love Like This Again" from "The Towering Inferno." In 1978, Hirschhorn earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Music, Original Song, for "Candle on the Water" and Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score, both for the Disney animated film "Pete's Dragon."

His songs were nominated for four Golden Globes by The Hollywood Foreign Press Association; "The Morning After" in 1973, "We May Never Love Like This Again" in 1975, "I'd Like to Be You for a Day" from Freaky Friday in 1977 and was nominated for Best Original Score - Motion Picture for "Pete's Dragon" in 1978.

Hirschhorn earned two Tony nominations for Best Original Score for "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and for the Broadway hit, "Copperfield." More than twenty films feature Hirschhorn's songs. Elvis Presley is among the list of artists that have recorded Hirschhorn's songs. A number of television shows have utilized his songs as well.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fooled this idiot, October 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting (Paperback)

This, in spite of the title, is not a book about writing songs. It's a book about being a songwriter, about the music industry as it applies to songwriting. If you're not familiar with the writing of songs but would like to learn the basics for fun if not profit, look elsewhere. Where else, I can't tell you. Certainly one would learn more from studying a songbook of hit songs.

Not to say there isn't some helpful stuff in the book. There's a chapter on rhyme that couldn't hurt the aspiring songwriter. But most of the information is about how to break into the business with a smash hit, how to avoid the pitfalls you'll encounter on your upward journey to the big time. The instructions on playing the lottery are simpler and free. Same odds.

85 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First rate, October 15, 2001

By 

[e-mail] (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting (Paperback)

I bought this excellent book after my therapist encouraged me to explore my creative side after my wife left me and I lost my job. I may be "quite frankly an insupportable liability to the business" and an "utterly lamentable" bedfellow, but thanks to Citron's tremendous guide I'm tapping a rich vein of material and banging out some fine blues numbers. Soon I plan on getting involved in a whisky-fuelled knife fight in a flop-house in Mississippi for messing with someone's woman.

36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'm an idiot for buying this..., March 23, 2005

By 

TommyT (South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting (Paperback)

I have played guitar for a few years and thought that writing/singing songs would be fun. So I popped into the bookstore and got this. I thought it would be about songwriting. It's mostly not. Much padding, like long lists of titles, that help get the authors point across. Eg: "Use colors in your titles" Pink Cadillac, Red Red Wine, Blue Monday etc etc etc. In columns to fill space.

In short, most of the book is a pep talk, about how you, the reader, "have what it takes", if you change your outlook on life. Watch movies, read books etc all while trying to see the songwriting angle. This is sad, I'd think.

All i wanted was the craft side of it. The "structural rules", verse chorus verse, nuts and bolts. And some analysis of great songs. None here. Just boring namedropping, and "I'm a successful songwriter, who keeps an eye on other songs". He quotes some truely awful songs/artists, which is also off putting.

Avoid.

I dont want to write a commercial mega-smash for radio, sung by a plastic pop star. I want to write campfire ditties. This book discusses some obvious little "cheats" (which is how they feel), to get your songs to appeal to the masses.

To be honest, anyone who truely has the right stuff to be a mega-writer, probably won't need a book. (let alone one with the label IDIOT on the cover)

Rubbish