Customer Reviews

Creating Melodies: A Songwriter's Guide to Understanding, Writing and Polishing Melodies

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

At last I thought, a book that teaches me how to create melodies. What a disappointment. Weissman doesn't explain how to use or develop a motif. Nor does he explain how to develop a melody or to generate prosody between the melody and the lyrics. The best book on writing melodies I've read is by Jai Josefs"writing music for hit songs'. The best book that brings every aspect of songwriting together is John Braheny's "The craft and business of songwriting'. For lyric writing I'd recommend all three of Pat Pattisson's books. I'd study Braheny's book first (In his lyric section he covers all the important aspects of Sheila Davis's 'the craft of lyric writing' and 'writing succesful lyrics')plus adding a lot of other ideas. Moreover, the book helps you to develop your creativity. After studying John's book I'd move on to Pat and Jai to get more detailed information about lyric and Music writing.

As a long-time professional musician who wanted to hone his songwriting skills in order to produce songs that were more aesthetically and commercially pleasing, I recently searched through songwriting books for help and guidance. At first, this book's title seemed promising--there didn't seem to be any other books focusing on the creation of melody. I expected an in-depth study offering insight and inspiration. It turned out to be a profound disappointment. Weissman comes across as a nice, well-meaning man, so I feel hesitant to excoriate his book, but his treatment of melody is superficial and prosaic. There's nothing in this book that a moderately gifted 5-year-old couldn't figure out by banging on a piano; it's based on the most rudimentary music theory, and is quite unimaginative at that. A complete novice might find something useful in this book, but even he/she would be better served by reading other books. I strongly recommend getting a good music theory book, and checking out books by Braheny, Leikin, Citron and Sheila Davis. They have everything Weissman has and much more, and presented much more skillfully. If you're serious about your songwriting, do it right!

I am surprised to see this book getting only one star by a couple of reviewers - they must have been disappointed that the book is very simplistic and meant to be a to-the-point, easy-to-follow beginner's book. I thought the book was great. It quickly explained to me how music is made up of notes from chosen chord progressions and scales. I love the book because it is short and written in boldy formatted paragraphs with diagrams of piano keys and guitar frets. It's a small, slim hardcover book so it's great to take along and read over coffee. It is a very basic book but it does what few writers are able to do: say exactly what needs to be said in as short a time space as possible! I think the author did a great job. I am now searching for my second music theory book, to keep learning about how music is actually created.

Not enough information regarding contouring, retrograde, melodic inversions etc... Most of it is common sense if you're a beginner it might help somewhat.

If you bear in mind that this is intended (or seems to be intended) for those with only a very rudimentary knowledge of music, you'll be less likely to be disappointed with it. The actual materials of melody are of course scales and chords. To learn about scalar material you are probably not familiar with (not matter how extensive your knowledge of music) I recommend PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.