Righting Wrongs In Writing Songs (Distributed by Alfred Music Publishing) is a book that focuses on the song writing process. Its aim is to give both aspiring as well as veterans of songwriting a powerful new approach to the craft. It looks at many of the common obstacles in the song writing process as well as providing techniques to overcome them.
Righting Wrongs In Writing Songs takes each chapter an looks at the root of a specific problem — in fact, each chapter is listed as a problem, and through exercises, helps you get through the issue at hand. Righting Wrongs is 352 pages and is divided into 13 problems.
Problem One, "We Don't Know What We're Trying to Achieve," begins with looking at what songwriting is and how each person has their own strengths and weakness' with regard to the various aspects of a song. This chapter is about learning what works for you and what doesn't — about finding out how to make the most of each.
Problem Two, "We Don't Know Why We Are Writing," is a very common problem. You can ask many different people what constitutes a good song, and you would get as many answers. Here you want to determine why you are writing before you start. This gives you the ability to both know where you are going as well as how to determine how successful you have been when you get there.
Problem Three, "We Don't Present Our Songs as Effectively as Possible," takes a look at song form — or the presentation of the song. This will have significant impact on how our song is received. Here you look at how songs are built with sections and the different consecutive sections with which your songs can be constructed.
Problem Four, "We're Not Sure What Our Melody Is All About," begins by asking you to define what exactly is a melody? Then you will explore what is so important about the melody and the components that can make it interesting — tones, singable, rhythmic, and memorable.
Problem Five, "Notes Fall Out of Our Heads without Us Thinking about Them," next looks at scales and how they affect the music. These are the raw building blocks of tonality and are used as the palette for melodic and harmonic tones. This is a bit of a tough chapter as it requires some detailed analysis the melody and how it works in the framework of the song.
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