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 enlarge | Author: Rikky Rooksby
Publisher: Miller Freeman Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.87
You Save: $8.08 (41%)
New (34) Used (12) from $11.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 27077
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 11 x 8.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0879306114
Dewey Decimal Number: 787.8713
EAN: 9780879306113
ASIN: 0879306114
Publication Date: September 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20090107232017T
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent resource... October 9, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is not going to make you a great guitar player and this book is not going to make you a creative person(but what book can??) What this book will do is give you a very strong foundation for chordal progression. The pop song which has been predominant for the last 50 years is analyzed in a straightforward handsome manner. A person with a basic understanding of guitar chords can get through this book and it is an excellent reference guide for those that are advanced musicians.
This book is great for connecting the dots musically. For example, if you have written a bunch of riffs but don't know how to turn them into a song this book can help you gain direction.
Again this book can't make you creative but it can help a creative person get a lot more output from focused effort. This book can give your chord sequences direction in affect turning your meandering strumming into an actual song.
excellent August 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book is 90% about writing songs with guitar chords. Sections on lyric writing didn't impress me. The very short chapter on making a demo recording was excellent and almost a great (though very very short) book on its own.Best real-world, practical explanation of chords and chord progressions I've ever read. (in the rock and pop genre.) Really breaks down song and musical structures of popular songs. Another great point is inclusion of recent as well as 60s and 70s rock songs. For example, one page analyzes a Fat Boy Slim song.My knowledge and understanding increased greatly from this book.There are so many great example progressions that you can open the book at random, play around with something on the page and come up with something.This book does not go into the "front end" of the psychology or craft of creativity.One of the best books on creating music I've ever read.Also check out "The War of Art" for a brilliant and inspiring book about creating.
Superb Book January 9, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have been playing guitar, and writing songs for 15 years. I learned a good bit from this book that I wish I would have known when I first started 15 years ago. You probably think you know how to write a song, but unless you have been trained in music theory, you probably have just been doing things that sound good without understanding why. This book does not go into extreme detail on any one subject in songwriting, its sort of like an really good overview on information such as melody, lyrics, chords, progressions, song types, etc.. It shows you all the pieces you need and more importantly WHY they sound the way they do or go together. It is for the person with beginner-intermediate music theory skill, or for any skill level guitar player. Information is well organized, easy to understand, and backed with examples from popular songs. Not songs like "Greensleeves" and "mary had a little lamb", but beatles, nirvana, oasis, madonna,etc.. Check out this guy's other books- I was very interested in the chord progression section and got his book on that subject. I think it is even better than this one.
Great Book on Songwriting November 2, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a must have for any guitar player trying to write songs, especially the singer / songwriter type. This book is filled with ideas for songs and how to incorporate the guitar into your songwriting. What I like most about this book was the numerous chord progressions listed and what mood each progression can create. It gives examples of songs that use the progressions and what genre of music they fit best. I loved this book and use it regularly. If you are looking to write music and lyrics this is a must.
 Stunningly bad October 5, 2006
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
To be honest, I've owned this book forever but after seeing someone ask about it on another forum, I just wanted to log in here and write a quick review of it as a warning to potential customers because I found it so poorly executed. This book basically consists of Rooksby very quickly presenting a topic in overly simple terms and then citing hundreds of examples of existing known songs that are supposed to illustrate his idea. This sounds like a great idea in principle but in execution it all falls apart. The examples read like pure fluff and do not cover any detail whatsoever, he does not even go into high level things like chord progressions, etc, from the examples. I presume this is due to copyright restrictions, etc. It would have made much more sense to license a few decent examples and really show how they illustrate the point. Or heck, the book is about song writing, why not actually WRITE a few over the course of the book??
The CD that came with the book is literally content-free, too. There's almost nothing on it. Again, this is in spite of all of the external music cited (some of it obscure) and due to the lack of specifics in the book. The CD can literally be thrown away without harming use of the book. It appears to be included in the book as reassurance that there is something there... i.e. a marketing move more than a useful resource for the customer.
So, really, in spite of the hundreds of general examples cited in the book, there is not a single specific detailed piece of information I can remember off hand. Ie. almost no tab, chord diagrams, or sheet music style content. Almost nothing specific about the guitar's interaction with the rhythm section and the specifics of writing for the rhythm section or vocal melody are covered either. And of course, the tell-tale item: nothing is composed/written by Rooksby for the book.
Looking at the presentation, its very slick. The book looks nice, the layout is great, the writing style is enthusiastic, its easy to WANT to like it but when it comes down to it it's good looking book that doesn't achieve its objective. I regretted the time I spent reading this book hoping for it to get better... Thankfully it's extremely short too, but I won't even bother going there at this point. ;)
So, basically, this book is just flat out not useful and the time spent looking for a different, more suitable, book on the topic will be rewarded many times over.
Also, avoid Rooksby's "Riffs" book as well, it suffers nearly the exact same set of problems as this one.
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