How to Write Songs on Keyboards - A Complete Course to Help You Write Better Songs Book/CD (Softcover) [Paperback]

Rikky Rooksby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

How to Write Songs on Keyboards helps both keyboard and guitar players find and develop interesting keyboard chords and chord sequences that they can use in their own songs. Rather than trying to teach intricate pieces of music, the book breaks things down into a simple style, concentrating on basic chords and ideas that can be gradually elaborated to create more complex structures. A visual system that virtually eliminates the use of standard music notation allows guitarists who are used to using guitar tablature feel totally at home. Songwriting issues are also analyzed, including key changes and writing songs in minor keys. The straightforward style of How to Write Songs on Keyboards will have musicians writing on a keyboard with ease — even if they never have before.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Backbeat Books (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879308621
• ISBN-13: 978-0879308629
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance > Sheet Music & Scores > Forms & Genres > Lieder & Art Songs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Four stars only because it lacks the power of How To Write Songs On Guitar., November 11, 2006

By 

Chris "the most passionate music/film fan alive." (Philly suburbs, PA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Write Songs on Keyboards - A Complete Course to Help You Write Better Songs Book/CD (Softcover) (Paperback)

I am a rabid follower of Rikky Rooksby's music theory/songwriting books, as he is a constant provider of quality songwriting techniques, ones that legendary bands and underrated singer-songwriters use in nearly all of their songs.

If you're familiar with Rikky's debut "How To Write Songs On Guitar", you'll know that that book is absolutely essential if you're an aspiring or even advanced songwriter.

This book, titled the same with the word "Keyboards" instead of "Guitar", lacks a lot of what made Rikky's first book a milestone.

It's nice having a CD to listen to as you learn these tried-and-true techniques, but the examples are far too short. They're not really explained exceptionally well as the examples and citations in "...Guitar."

Aside from this minor gripe, I still find this book incredibly useful, as I do all Rikky's books. The only reason I'm giving it four stars instead of 5 is because it's not "...Guitar."

As I wrote in other reviews of Rikky's books, I think his writing and overall book quality is declining, as it seems that "Guitar" was so popular, that Backbeat started releasing one or two books by him per year, which, may be a bit impatient, but maybe not. In my opinion, it just seems like he's rushing through explaining these songwriting and chord progression techniques, where with "Guitar" he clearly explained them and gave TONS of pop song examples (pop as in Jeff Buckley, The Smiths, Simon & Garfunkel, etc. not pop like Britney).

Still, it's Rooksby. I own all of his books, at least the ones with this cover theme (huge capitalized titles).

In my opinion, Rikky's books, in overall quality are (1 being the best):

1. How To Write Songs On Guitar (wouldn't it be great if the 2nd edition included a CD with a LOT of the examples? That would rock)
2. The Songwriting Sourcebook
3. Chord Master
4. How To Write Songs On Keyboards
5. Arranging Songs
6. Lyrics
7. Riffs
8. Melody

I hope Rikky continues to make useful songwriting books, and I hope he gets back to the quality from his first four.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for beginners to get the creative juices flowing, November 13, 2005

By 

Carmella Diforte (Boston MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Write Songs on Keyboards - A Complete Course to Help You Write Better Songs Book/CD (Softcover) (Paperback)

This is not a book on how to play the piano, even though learning chords is probably more than half the battle, this book does everything it says it does, it teaches you the most common chord structures and progressions in most popular music. I sat down at my keyboard and played one of the progressions, they are very effective, and I had heard them before in other songs. The notation is very intuitive for the none music reading songwriters-to-be. It shows the keyboard visually on the page with dots on the keys to be struck for the chord. All in all this is an excellent book, with a nice cd letting you listen to the progressions to get a better idea of them, one motto from the book is not too worry about what chord you are playing, if it sounds good.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changed my music tremendously!, October 17, 2006

By 

Jeff Parker "Jeff Parker" (Kansas City, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Write Songs on Keyboards - A Complete Course to Help You Write Better Songs Book/CD (Softcover) (Paperback)

When I found this book and looked inside, I was blown away! Finally a book that shows you just what you need to know without drowning you in theory and WITHOUT being geared towards guitarists! I make electronic dance music and found this book (along with a chord wheel) to be an amazing resource to improve your songwriting techniques. I went from 2-chord songs with no discernible structure to amazingly complex songs with dramatic chord changes!

Since I use a computer sequencer along with my keyboard, programming these chords into my sequencer then playing them back while improvising melodies on top of them has been absolutely amazing. I really think if you're making electronic dance music you can benefit a lot from this book, but to a larger extent any songwriter could find something here that makes it worth the purchase price!