The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow [Hardcover]

Sheila Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1992

In her first two books, Sheila Davis classified the major song forms and enduring principles that have been honored for decades by America's foremost songwriters. Those books have become required reading in music courses from NYU to UCLA.

In The Songwriters Idea Book, Davis goes one step further, giving you 40 strategies for designing distinctive songs. You'll break new ground in your own songwriting by learning about the inherent relationship between language style, personality type and the brain.

• You'll go, step by step, through the creative process as you activate, incubate, separate and discriminate.

  
  
  
  
  

• You'll learn to use the whole-brain techniques of imaging, brainstorming and clustering.

  
  
  
  
  

• You'll expand your skilled use of figurative language with paragrams, metonyms, synecdoche and antonomasia.

  
  
  
  
  

• You'll be challenged to design metaphors, form symbols, make puns and coin words.

  
  
  
  
  

• And, you'll learn how to prevent writer's block, increase your productivity and maintain your creative flow.

Over 100 successful student lyrics from pop, country, cabaret, and theater serve as role-models to illustrate the "whole-brain" songwriting process.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Sheila Davis'] guidelines contain wonderful nuts and bolts information designed to give the reader clear and concise ways to create commercial lyrics. Anyone who has ever sat blankly staring at an empty sheet of paper awaiting divine intervention will appreciate this resourceful volume." -- Songwriter's Musepaper

I highly recommend this book...to anyone who is serious about bettering their craft. -- Songwriter's Monthly

THE SONGWRITERS IDEA BOOK is an inspiration for all songwriters who want to hone their craft. -- Michael A. Kerker, ASCAP Director of Musical Theatre

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Writer's Digest Books / F & W Publications; 1st edition (January 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898795192
• ISBN-13: 978-0898795196
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful source of inspiration and fresh perspectives, August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow (Hardcover)

This book does exactly what the title says! I have to say it's one of my favorite books about the art and craft of lyric writing. Everyone wants to be original, and this book can be a very helpful tool towards that end. It's great book to help break you out of your normal way of approaching lyric writing, not to mention aid when you are blocked. I constantly look to it as a source of inspiration, and I like the way it helps to "de-mystify" the process. This book offers you different and fresh ways of approaching and treating your subject matter, techniques for coming up with ideas when you're really blocked, insight into how your personality type drives your manner of writing, plus exercises and examples to help get you going and inspire you. It also gives you "small craft warnings" about potential pitfalls and helpful tips on how to avoid them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who writes lyrics!

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The cure for writer's block, September 30, 2003

By 

krebsman (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow (Hardcover)

Ever had writer's block? This book is the cure! Along with Davis' THE CRAFT OF LYRIC WRITING and SUCCESSFUL LYRIC WRITING, THE SONGWRITERS IDEA BOOK forms a brilliant trilogy that is essential for the person who wants to write lyrics. I'm rather surprised by reading some of the negative comments below. My guess is that those people merely leafed through the book without actually reading it. This book is NOT an easy read. It is not something that can be scanned. It must be read and studied very carefully. It is very important to understand part 2 of the book (pages 15 through 34) before moving ahead. This is the section wherein Davis analyzes the different types of the creative mind. In only a few short pages Davis introduces a lot of important concepts that need to be understood. The reader must take her tests and figure out which type he is. Then and only then is the book of value. I had to read part two several times before I really understood it. But once I had a firm grasp of those ideas, I found the book to be extremely valuable. Davis basically says that when one is blocked, that he needs to come at it from the other side of the brain. She then proceeds to give exercises that make it easy to access the unused part of the brain. While ostensibly for the lyricist, I think the principles can be adapted for any kind of writing. I think this is a great book and I am grateful to Sheila Davis for writing it.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for identifying your mind as well as song ideas, June 13, 2001

By 

J. P. Hillman "junplugged" (Farmingdale, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow (Hardcover)

I refer to this book weekly and have owned it for 4 years. I spoke the author in 1997 and thanked her for her contribution to this subject. Her 3 books are 3 volumes of my songwriting bible. It is her books that finally gave me the ability to be happy with my own songwriting for the first time in my timespan of over ten years of not liking my lyrics. In this book, the author helps you identify your style of work and how it affects your first drafts. This info also has helped me in other parts of my thinking process. No other author, so far, has been as complete and detailed in their presentation of the songwriting process as Sheila Davis. Brilliant.