The Young Musician's Guide to Songwriting: How to Create Music & Lyrics Paperback – June 6, 2014

What can I say, I loved this book. I'm not a musician and not a songwriter… but it made me want to be one. For anyone with with that passion, or even passing interest, I would think this is the book for them.Lisa Lukas writes with a sassy, upbeat, clear cut style, mixing down to earth common sense 'how-to' with anecdotal stories-- both legendary as well as gems from her own personal journey. Her humor as well as love for songwriting shines through.The layout is clean and fun too, which makes for a fast, interesting read. I particularly loved her sprinkling of 'fun facts' through out, as well as brainstorming ideas for getting the muse going.Aimed at the 'young musician' the author never talks down to anyone, or patronizes. Rather, the book is imbued with her love of music... which I found contagious. A real gem.

I am so grateful to have come across such an enjoyable, easy to read, and thoroughly inspiring guide to songwriting -- not just for young people, but for anyone, regardless of age. This book gives you fantastic tools to get started with songwriting, and encourages you to do so, no matter what level of musicianship you possess. It also makes it easy to discover your own, creative talents in all aspects of your everyday life. I was always curious about trying to write songs, and how to go about getting started. Now I'm really excited to begin. I think it's a wonderful gift for anyone who wants to explore & develop their creative potential.

Don't let the "Young Musician" part of this title fool you. This book is great for adults too! I have been teaching piano for over a decade and learned quite a bit from this well-written book. I'm excited to incorporate more composing work into my teaching and I have recommended to all my students who have a serious interest in songwriting to purchase the book for themselves. I think one of the best ways to really learn music theory is to apply to your own creations. Lisa does a great job of breaking the process down and gives little exercises to make the task manageable.

This book is... mildly useful. The target audience is children, however the book contains a lot of advanced music theory which is sometimes poorly explained. Certain things, such as the various modes, are more confusing than they are helpful, especially to a beginner. My biggest problem with this book, though, is how much paper is wasted on useless things, such as lists of songs that the author likes. There is also a part in the book where the author takes every single key, including modes, and writes out the scales in major/minor/etc, and the worst part about it is that the scales are written using accidentals, meaning unless you already know and understand the key signatures, you are going to probably be more confused than anything. There are some useful exercises and ideas contained within the pages of this book, but there is alot of garbage to sift through, and I doubt that this would be easy for a kid or a music theory novice to comprehend.

This is a wonderful book! It's useful for songwriters of various ages/stages -- young, not-as-young, beginning, wanting-to-begin, and experienced. It's well written at both the detailed and big-picture levels, well organized and designed, thorough, and inspirational. I use it as a reference for my piano students who want to write their own songs. I highly recommend it to anyone of any age who studies or teaches songwriting, and I appreciate all the time, thought, energy, passion, and generosity that went into writing this extremely helpful book. Thank you very much, Lisa!

My daughter and i I Share the cost of $300 a month to have her in the school of rock. My grand daughter told me this was an excellent book. 😁

Really interesting read...after starting I couldn’t put it down even though I was exhausted!

I was a little anxious that this book would be "too young" for my 23 year old daughter but it was just right. As soon as I opened it, I knew I'd made the right choice.

I bought this for my daughter while hoping I might learn a bit from it too. We were both diappointed.Perhaps worrying that that a full page of text will lose her young readers' attention, the author has at least one big box-out every page - leaving them looking a bit sparse.At the same time there's some quite long and dry sections musical theory. Why does practically every book on music making, no matter how basic, feel the need to go into modes (dorian, phrygian etc?)But the biggest problem is that, while she lists "inspiring" songs" over several pages, she doesn't look into why any of these might serve as models to learn from - presumably for copyright reasons. So the only example songs, which she goes into at considerable length, are her own.With the wealth of (mostly free) content out there on the web, I'm not sure a book is even the best way to put this kind of material across.

Bought for my 15 year old grandson who already plays guitar and drums, creating music, and is taking Grades in music. I think the reader would need to be involved already. I've been impressed that he is reading it as there is so much on line and makes it more difficult for a book to hit the mark.

A very accessible yet informative book. A fantastic read with lots of step-by-step practical tools for song-writing.

A very clear, very useful introduction to writing songs. You can find out about music theory, the process of lyrics writing and music composing. I think this book is a great help for beginners and provides all the tools you need to start writing songs!

My daughter loves this and uses it often thank you