Writing Music for Hit Songs: Including New Songs from the '90s

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Summary: Book Description, Author Information
Review: "A wonderful and educational book that every serious songwriter should pick up and read." Diane Warren, hit songwriter for Michael Bolton, Céline Dion, Elton John, and many others

This book is for everyone who dreams of placing a song on the Top-40 charts. From the musical basics through the completed song, Josefs reveals the hit-making mixture for rock, country, R&B, and theatrical forms.

Illustrated with over 100 real-world examples songs from such noted writers as Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Garth Brooks, Paul Simon, and Sting. Writing Music for Hit Songs shows how the principles apply. The book also covers the technical and business aspects of demo tapes, copyrighting, and selling songs to publishers.

Jai Josefs has over twenty years experience as a songwriter, arranger, producer, composer, and musician. He has taught songwriting at UCLA and his songs have been recorded by major artists including Little Richard.

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Summary: Excellent resource for songwriters / Highly recomended!!
Review: I accidentally ran across this book in a music store. The title intrigued me so I picked it up and thumbed through it, 20 mins. later I bought it. I'm a self taught pianist and this book has opened up a whole new world of ideas to me. I'm on my third reading now and in every reading I seem to pick up something that I didn't before. You have to be committed to sitting down to read through the book and doing the exercises. I highly recommend this book to others. It is primarily theory but in a relatively short time it all made sense to me. Contrary to one of the other written reviews YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ MUSIC!! to understand this book. I don't read music at all and I found the book well written, clear and concise. In fact I want to learn to read music now so that I can analyze other songs out there and to expand my vocabulary even further. If only I could find a book on reading music written out like this one then I would be ecstatic.

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Summary: Read This And Learn
Review: I studied songwriting with Jai several years ago and am reviewing this book as I get back into after a several year break. It's increadible and an essential foundation. I've gotten copies of every song in this book and it helps tremendously to hear the examples, to really understand what is going on inside of a great song. Why. So you can learn and apply to your songs. Example: I was going a harmonic analysis of the Song Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head recently and I was confused because at one place the chord being played didn't seem to fit what the correct chord should be. I couldn't understand it, but then I remembered Jai's concept of Prosody, which is what is being said in music matching what is being said in the words. The chord that didn't fit was write at the word "fit" in the line "nothing seems to fit". Now that's genius. My new song has the words "doesn't seem to fit" and I will find the right, "wrong" chord. Now that's genius and learning from genius. This book is the pathway to understanding the language songwriters use so you can learn what they have to teach. It is the gateway to The Great Musical Continuum. And it's cheap!

Bob Dylan said "You're better off having a feel for music that you don't have to carry in your head, that you can write down. To me these are the people who are serious about this craft. Not people who just want to pour out their insides". Who's to argue with Bob? Not me.

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Summary: The most useful book of music theory/songwriting I've seen
Review: I've paged through many books about songwriting trying to find a way to understand how to construct music to complement my lyrics. This book finally solved my problem and has absolutely revolutionized my songwriting. I wouldn't recommend this book for someone who is a complete novice in music theory because it moves very quickly through a great number of topics. I took notes to make sure I got everything I could out of it! I haven't looked at another music theory book since. If you're serious about writing better music, buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: The most useful book of music theory/songwriting I've seen
Review: I've paged through many books about songwriting trying to find a way to understand how to construct music to complement my lyrics. This book finally solved my problem and has absolutely revolutionized my songwriting. I wouldn't recommend this book for someone who is a complete novice in music theory because it moves very quickly through a great number of topics. I took notes to make sure I got everything I could out of it! I haven't looked at another music theory book since. If you're serious about writing better music, buy this book!

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Summary: Not for the hit maker songwriter!
Review: Im dissapointed. Im a Swedish songwriter and I feel this book is too robotic. Its all theory and you have to be good at notation to really understand it. My point is, many of the worlds best songwriter dont even read notes.
Its obvious to me that this guy is more succseful at theory than writing hit songs. Dont buy this book unless your into music theory!
This book obviously wont make you a hit songwriter but it can give you some cool ideas.
I thought this book would be about principles and the core of songwriting. Its about music theory not songwriting!
Look for another book!

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Summary: For anyone serious about writing better music. READ THIS!
Review: It took me about 6 months to read and fully understand this book. It is so comprehensive and also has exercise to reinforce learned skills. Can be a refresher course for seasoned veterans of musical techniques or else an eye opening book of pure musical technique magic. A must read!

MarQue

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Summary: Not for the hit maker songwriter!
Review: Jai Joseph uses examples from the repertoire of popular music which most everyone will be familiar with. Well written from an educational standpoint. Its not as complete as it could be, but frankly, no one else has done a better job in the domain of popular music. It should not be allowed to go out of stock.

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Summary: Songwriters' resource.
Review: Jai Joseph uses examples from the repertoire of popular music which most everyone will be familiar with. Well written from an educational standpoint. Its not as complete as it could be, but frankly, no one else has done a better job in the domain of popular music. It should not be allowed to go out of stock.

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Summary: A very practical and easy understood approach to songwriting
Review: The author is clearly a seasoned songwriter with an abundance of knowledge and skill. Yet, he is able to explain the technicalities of songwriting in such a way that the not-so-professional hobbyist songwriter like myself can follow. Having not had formal music theory training myself I could easily catch up with the essentials without feeling it was a hopeless situation. The author managed to keep my attention and deal with the music theory in such a fashion that I could not wait to see his next topic. I found the approach very practical. In fact, I could immediately apply what I learned and the results were immediate. Still, an enormous amount of information is contained in this book and I am sure I shall refer back to the detail many times in the future. It has also helped me better understand songs that already became hits and the book is full of real examples.