Infuse your lyrics with sensory detail! Writing great song lyrics requires practice and discipline. Songwriting Without Boundaries will help you commit to routine practice through fun writing exercises. This unique collection of more than150 sense-bound prompts helps you develop the skills you need to: • tap into your senses and inject your writing with vivid details • effectively use metaphor and comparative language • add rhythm to your writing and manage phrasing Songwriters, as well as writers of other genres, will benefit from this collection of sensory writing challenges. Divided into four sections, Songwriting Without Boundaries features four different fourteen-day challenges with timed writing exercises, along with examples from other songwriters, poets, and prose writers.

Discover songwriting techniques from the hit makers! This comprehensive guide unlocks the secrets of hit songs, examining them, and revealing why they succeed. Learn to write memorable melodies and discover the dynamic relationships between melody, harmony, rhythm, and rhyme. Fine-tune your craft and start writing hits!

A self-training manual as well as a classroom text, this book is a complete step-by-step course to develop the musician's ability to hear and notate any style of music. Personal training, thoery and exercises produce techniques which are combined in an integrated craft which may be applied to composition, orchestration, arranging, improvisation and performance. A kind of finishing school for those who wish to pursue a career in composing, orchestrating, arranging or performing. -- The Score, Society of Composers and Lyricists A myriad of practical information. Comprehensive ear training, important because aural skills are among the most overlooked in music education. -- Survey of New Teaching Materials, Jazz Educators journal A synthesis of the author's vast knowledge and his quest to define the question, "How do we hear?" -- ITG Journal A wonderfully systematic approach to ear training . . . neatly designed and structured, it just flows. Direct and easily understood. -- New books, Jazz Educators Journal Bernard Brandt says: "Hearing and Writing Music", by Ron Gorow, is a superb book. It makes a simple and elegant presentation of the internal process by which we hear sounds and music, how we recognize intervals, chords, melody, harmony, counterpoint, and the timbre of instrumentation/ orchestration, how we can develop the skills of listening, auditory memory and imagination, and how to use these skills to hear and to write down music of any sort. The hallmark of an expert is the ability to explain the basics of his field as simply as possible. By that standard, Mr. Gorow has proven his expertise in this book. I note that the other reviews, both for Amazon and in musical journals, tend to limit the importance of "Hearing and Writing Music" to ear training. I believe that Mr. Gorow's book is valuable for much more than ear training. I have studied it, and as a result of that study, I believe that my auditory memory and imagination and my abilities in score reading have improved enormously. Further, I have been able to use the skills in this book to transcribe melodies, harmonies and counterpoint almost effortlessly, both those that I have heard, and those which existed only in my imagination. This book has opened many doors for me. I believe that it can do so for many others.

Explains how to create songs to be played on guitar, including advice on such basics of songwriting as structure, rhythm, melody, and lyrics.

(Berklee Guide). Learn to write songs! This book presents the basic concepts of popular songwriting, such as song construction, creativity techniques, melodic and harmonic development, how to write memorable lyrics, and other core topics. Hands-on exercises make it practical, and the accompanying recording illustrates the concepts for those who don't yet read music.

Fully revised, this workbook remains the best way to prepare for ABRSM's Grade 5 Theory of Music Exam. Features a clear explanation of music notation, many worked examples and practice exercises, definitions of important words and concepts, specimen exam questions and helpful tips for students.

-- Stanley Persky, City University of New York

"Composing with constraints proposes an innovative approach to the instruction of the craft of music composition based on tailored exercises to help students develop their creativity. The fundamental premise of Composing with constraints is based on my previous book on algorithmic composition, which-in a few words-states that all compositional approaches are algorithmic and can be reduced to a formal process that involves a series of logical steps. When composition gets condensed to a series of logical steps, it can then be taught and learned more efficiently. With this approach in mind, Composing with constraints proposes a variety of exercises in the form of algorithms to help the student composer and the instructor create tangible work plans, with high expectations and successful outcomes. The book is structured around the parameters of melody, rhythm, harmony, texture and pre-compositional approaches. All chapters start with a brief note on terminology and general recommendations for the instructor. The first five chapters offer a variety of exercises that range from analysis and style imitation, to the use of probabilities. The chapter about pre-compositional approaches offers original techniques that a student composer can implement in order to start a new work. Based on lateral thinking, this last section of the book fosters creative connections with other disciplines such as math, visual arts, and architectural acoustics. Each of the 100 exercises contained in the book proposes a unique set of guidelines and constraints intended to place the student in a specific compositional framework. Through those compositional boundaries the student is encouraged to produce creative work within a given structure. Using the methodologies in this book, students will be able to create their own outlines for their compositions, making intelligent and educated compositional choices that balance reasoning with intuition. Depending on the class in which it is adopted, Composing with constraints can be a priceless aid for the instructor. When used to complement a music theory class, the exercises can be used as compositional projects, to provide creative frameworks to the theoretical concepts studied in class and even to trigger group discussions. In a class on analysis, the book can be an invaluable tool for stylistic understanding, appropriation and imitation. Finally, when used in individual and group composition lessons, the book can provide an enormous palette of concrete assignments that the instructor can use to guide the students' compositional development and practice. The grading rubric provided in the book is an invaluable tool for both the instructor and the student. Divided in four categories (i.e. followed guidelines, orchestration, idiomatic use of the instruments and "open spaces"), the grading rules clarify in detail the grade awarded to the student, showing the aspects of the work that can be improved. Through the quantization of "open spaces", the rubric also helps the instructor ponder the students' creative use of the aspects of the exercises not constrained or left "free" in the guidelines. In sum, Composing with constraints is an excellent tool for the instruction of music composition offering clear organization, a helpful grading rubric, and a versatility that makes it applicable for a myriad of courses and levels"--