Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting
Webb brings his insider’s knowledge, experience, and star power to the ultimate guide for aspiring songwriters. With a combination of anecdotes, meditation, and advice, he breaks down the creative process from beginning to end–from coping with writer’s block, to song construction, chords, and even self-promotion. Webb also gives readers a glimpse into the professional music world.
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Inside the Head of Jimmy Webb – Genius,
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From 1965 to 1970 or so Jimmy Webb was inescapable. You watched the Carole Burnett show, and there were the 5th Dimension singing “Up, Up and Away.” Turn on the radio, and Richard Harris’ cake melted in the rain. Glen Campbell rode the Witchia line, drove through Phoenix, and ruminated about Galveston. Those incandescent melodies entered my childhood and have stayed with me.
Hard rock drove this more upbeat music from the airwaves, but Jimmy Webb’s legacy remains in the catalog of fine songs he wrote at a precocious age. Now his book gives us some insight into the mind who might arguably be called the last great songwriter of the 20th century.
Many people coming to this book will eagerly open it, hoping to extract the secret than made Jimmy Webb into a wealthy man, and they will come away dissappointed and frustrated. This is not a book about how to write a song, so much as it is a repository of the mind of Jimmy Webb. True, Jimmy writes about how he composes a lyric, and how he creates a chord progression. His discussion of prosody is excellent, too. But there is more here that simple technical discussion of song writing.
This book a cultural history of the American song up to the end of the 1960’s. Jimmy Webb gives us stories, his own history, his background, and discussions of songs from the beginning of the modern era to the present. For some like me, who has a deep interest in American Cultural history, this book is a gem.
Musican theoriticans might have a fit when Jimmy Webb starts giving his version of Secondary Dominants and other chord substutions, but again, when they’ve written “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” I’ll listen to them.
Other reviewers say that it would be better to have some knowledge of music theory before you read this book, and I agree with that. When Jimmy starts on about 7th chords No 3 with a minor 2nd in the bass, you might start stratching your head if you don’t know what he’s talking about. Have a keyboard around so you can play the examples.
This book is like taking a master class from a professional, not a seminar by a music teacher who never’s sold one song, let alone had hit after hit, gold records, Grammies. Jimmy Webb is an authentic American genius – he and Brian Wilson on the west coast – Dylan on the East – who blew the roof off of the stilted 32 bar song and the 12 bar blues.
Tunesmith is about songwriting, not about how to write a song. If you have to ask the difference, you’ll never know.
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|Shows the dedication of a true songwriter,
Jimmy Webb’s dedication to his craft is obvious, and it comes through the pages. The increadible amounts of work that go into writing a song are tracked momenty by moment in this book. Just about every step to songwriting, all of the options are in these pages. From various “tricks” of chord substitution to which rhyming dictionaries he likes and why – it’s all here. His approach to songwriting is that of a master craftsman, and he doesn’t hold back in his lessons.
One odd thing. As a musician I was able to follow through as he introduced different elements – inverted chords, 7th chords, etc. The novice, however might have difficulty. He introduces each piece individually, but then makes logical leaps that I still don’t quite get. Specific examples escape me, but he’ll take great pains to describe something simple and a paragraph later give you an example that incorporates something he hasn’t yet introduced to you. He’ll go on about how to construct a triad, and then jump PAST 7th chords. I was able to follow it, but I’ve been playing music for 10 years.
I also disagree (but this is personal preference) with his chord substitution ideas: just find any chord with one note in common. Maybe he brings it all together in a later chapter, but he should let the reader know that he’s wandered into the land of Chordal Compositions (compositions with no particular key) and away from the diataonic world that dominates Western music. Then again, maybe I’m just an old stick in the mud who Likes Diatonic composition. 🙂
These two points aside, this book still rates 5 stars. I’ve learned SO much from this book that it’s earned a permenant spot on my bookshelf. I thank Jimmy Web for giving this gift to the world.
Somewhat more pedestrian, but also reccomended is “Writing Music for Hit Songs.” It may pay to go through that book before getting into this book. It may help fill in some of the gaps I mention above. It’s a straightforward good book.
Write me at fourstrings@mailandnews.com with comments or questions. I’m ALWAYS interested in talking music with anyone – experts, beginners… anyone.
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