Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
I cannot recommend enough the free songwriting course from Berklee college of music which focuses on lyrics and song form. Again, many thanks to Noel96 for turning me on to this class. I’ve had several years of enjoyment now using the concepts from that class; getting to a point where if any idea hits me as one I want to dwell on for a bit, I have confidence I can turn that idea into a set of lyrics for a song without much trouble. Through practice.

Scott,

Like you, I still find Pat Pattison's approach brilliant. No-one else teaches lyric writing insight and strategies like he does. I've been to many of his seminars now and every time I go, I always pick up something that I didn't know before.

The tools that Pat has given me have proven extremely useful over the years. I'm the same as you in that I've also discovered that if something catches my attention, it's not that hard to turn it into a set of workable lyrics. All it boils down to is knowing what to do and having an approach in mind. And this is where Pat's strategies really shine.

I'm also a huge fan of Andrea Stolpe's book. Andrea is a student of Pat's who has taken his idea of object writing and has developed it into a songwriting strategy called "Destination Writing". I've found Andrea's approach incredibly productive.

Pat's books and Andrea's book are the ones I keep on returning to time and time again. I just keep on reading and re-reading them. If anyone is interested in these books, they are...

1. Writing Better Lyrics (2nd Ed., Pattison)

2. Essential Guide to Rhyming (2nd Ed., Pattison)

3. Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure (Pattison)

4. Writing Better Lyrics & Songwriting Without Boundaries (Pattison)

5. Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Story Telling (Stolpe)

The Book Depository has them at pretty good prices at the moment.

All the best,
Noel



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