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Rating: 
Summary: you need to own ALL of rikky rooksby's books.
Review: i can't praise rikky's books enough. i have all of them (at least the ones that are still in print). he knows his stuff. get this book, and its companion "how to write songs on guitar", and you're well on your way to making great music. he cites The Smiths and other great bands, in all of his books. now any author who uses the Smiths as an example of songwriting technique is aces in my book. seriously, the amount of knowledge you will get from his books (this one especially) is priceless. you'll never get writer's block again. GET HIS BOOKS. no others come close. -skip from the band beauty's confusion
Rating:
Summary: you need to own ALL of rikky rooksby's books.
Review: i can't praise rikky's books enough. i have all of them (at least the ones that are still in print). he knows his stuff. get this book, and its companion "how to write songs on guitar", and you're well on your way to making great music. he cites The Smiths and other great bands, in all of his books. now any author who uses the Smiths as an example of songwriting technique is aces in my book. seriously, the amount of knowledge you will get from his books (this one especially) is priceless. you'll never get writer's block again. GET HIS BOOKS. no others come close. -skip from the band beauty's confusion
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Summary: Can't learn what can't be taught
Review: Ideal purchase for anybody dumb enough to think that good songwriting can be taught in, or learned from, a book.
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Summary: Great book, great GarageBand Companion
Review: If you're using Apple's new (and wonderful) GarageBand, buy this (equally wonderful) book. Rooksby shows virtually every set of chord changes imaginable, explaining when and how you might use them to create your own music. So instead of thrashing around trying to get something that sounds right, you can read Rooksby and understand-and immediately try out-the ideas behind chord changes. With a program like GarageBand, you can, for example, insert a set of loops (like piano, bass, guitar, drums, etc); you then break these loops into bars and transpose each bar so that the loops create a backing of chord changes for a song. (GarageBand makes this about a 10-second task.) Then plug in your guitar or midi keyboard and go nuts playing lead. You'll have a rock solid and very patient backup group behind you. The Roman numeral notation Rooksby uses (and other musical pros also use ) is no longer a bunch of abstractions but real music. And not only is the book's content solid, the writing is clear as a Mile Davis solo. A great job, all around. If you're a musician who doesn't use GarageBand, buy this book anyway if you have the slightest interest in writing songs.
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Summary: You love his approach or you hate it...
Review: Rooksby has a style that is uniquely his own. He is kind of analyzing the melodic structure that is the basis of any song... Rooskby's approach is probably more like that of John Lennon than George Harrison. If that is your approach to music you will find new perspectives with this book. I found it helped me not only with guitar and rock, but it also gave a new perspective for composing dance music (although that isn't this books direction)
Rating: 
Summary: Simple, Clean and Very Helpful
Review: This is a book about chord progressions and song structures used in popular music. It is basic, but in a good way. I'm a pretty experienced songwriter, and I already intuitively do much of what the book describes, but now I know why what I do works or doesn't work, and also have a palette of new ideas. The layout and graphics are excellent, and I also appreciate the glossy paper stock -- the publishing work is beautifully done. If you enjoy writing songs, particularly if you're a guitar player who enjoys writing songs, and you want to better understand the foundations of popular song structure conventions, I heartily recommend this book.
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