Customer Reviews

How to Write a Hit Song and Sell It

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This book is a collection of advice for aspiring songwriters. Boyce had a number of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including "Last Train to Clarksville" and various songs for the Monkees. In this book, Boyce includes advice on finding material for songs, suggested ways to bring a song to completion, tips for collaborating, stories about his own song writing adventures, editing suggestions, and information about how to make money through writing songs. The book includes numerous black and white photos of Boyce, sheet music for several Boyce songs, and sample royalty statements. At the back of the book are lists of record companies and music publishers.

Although Boyce certainly was a successful songwriter, this book alone doesn't contain all the keys to the craft. The main strength of this book is in building the reader's confidence that anyone can write a song. In the foreword, Powers describes how he read an earlier version of the book and wound up collaborating with Boyce on several hit songs even though he had never written music before. Boyce's advice can help readers get started, get over the initial I-can't-write-music attitude. He describes how to go from an idea to a title, to writing some lyrics. But then he stops short before delving into the nuts and bolts of coming up with a melody or chord progression. He discusses the importance of editing, but skips some of the essential characteristics of hit songs. His description of the music business and how to make money by writing songs is quite informative, but much of the information is now dated, and even his approach of marketing songs directly to music companies just isn't how things are done these days. Nevertheless, aspiring songwriters may find some useful ideas in this book.

I owned this book when I was 13. It inspired me to become a songwriter. The advice still rings true today. Highly recommended.

I bought this book because I really love Tommy's music (I didn't buy it to learn to write songs , because i already do) ,but he did an incrediable job . His song writing ideas and explanations were good . The only thing was he didn't have too many examples . He did have ,which I love , sheet music . He also told so many stories about how he and other songwriters came to be it's like Chicken soup for the songwriter's soul , only better. Buy this book !

This was one of the most intruiging books that i have read on the subject matter. It did help me advance my song writing skills and although the authors have an upperhand on songwriting and its business, since they were so involved, it helped very much in my search for answers about these topics.