Songwriting without Boundaries: Lyric Writing Exercises for Finding Your Voice

Terrific exercises to improve your descriptive writing, lyrics. I read some of the stuff I've written using this book and its amazing. I worry exercises like this will kill my 'original and unique voice', maybe I'll sound like everyone else. Not these one's. Its a good process. Thanks P.P.!

As a book author who tries to elevate every project in order to set my work apart, I've found this to be an excellent resource in honing my poetic and creative abilities. You don't have to be a songwriter to find worth in this book, just a desire to learn and grow.

I bought this book in 2013. It's not a book to just read and learn the secret, it is a book that will guide your practice. I'm 33 years old. I've played guitar for 18 years at this point. I've learned to play and sing hundreds of songs. Please believe me when I tell you that I've tried since I was a teenager to write songs. It has never clicked. I've written a good handful of cringey verses with clichéd choruses. I even took a commercial songwriting course at on my pop music production Foundation Degree where I had to force out a bunch of lyrics at the last minute to meet a deadline. They're bad. Horrendous to my ears. I wanted to catch the bug but it just didn't take.I tried journalling - a super cathertic and highly rewarding process, but it didn't cause me to generate any songs. I tried brainstorming song titles. No joy. Try to cram in placeholder lyrics that don't mean anything but sit there until the real song happens. Nope. Sit with a guitar and a piece of paper and record myself mumbling - see if a topic comes. Result: horrible meandering non-songs with nothing of value coming out.I figured it was just a gene. Something that some people have and others don't. Or maybe I have to sit and write 100 bad songs, and stuggle through. I tried doing it sober. I tried doing it high. I tried doing it drunk. Nothing good was written. I tried Berklee's Coursera songwriting course. I still couldn't write a verse that I didn't hate.I bought this book. I was disappointed that this book was not giving me the "magic sentence" that I thought I needed to hear before I suddenly get the mysterious ability to write the musical social commentary of Alex Turner, or wrestle with the poetic imagery of Morrisey.. It was a book with exercises that I was supposed to do every day. I didn't have time for that, the book went on my shelf, where I'd occassionally look at it with regret, but tinted with a slight glow of potential. Like, there's SOMETHING in this book that I'm not seeing.Recently I decided to become an early morning writer. I dug out an old journal I hadn't filled and I started waking myself up at 6am to write for an hour and give myself space. I grabbed this book and decided, now I have time, that I'd actually make a serious attempt at developing a daily practice. Two weeks ago.Yesterday, I managed to FINALLY put melody and words, and a concept, to 2 song ideas I wrote in around 2013/14. These were guitar parts that I'd come up with and had always thought were just too good to waste on the kind of rubbish that I'd mumble along with them before I began to !!PRACTICE!! writing, using this book as a guide. Two weeks. I recorded the ideas and was actually excited to hear them back. Not cringing at the clichés and awkward stress on the wrong syllables. I rewrite, I play with imagery. This stuff just surfaces now, like it's a normal thing. Best of all, it sounds like the thoughts from MY head. I'm not just ripping off this or that lyricist, they're my song ideas.The way I see it is like riding a bike to train for a marathon. Will it make you run the marathon? No, you have to do that yourself, but it will improve your ability to do cope with the heavy training parts. The actual writing of the songs. It's so valuable to me. I'd love another edition of this book to come out with more exercises.Aside from that, my life is measurably better. The exercises provide a catharsis and the *CLICK* of all those cogs slotting into place has ended a life-long frustration. I will state, it is not the book itself that provides it. It's the daily practice of writing. I don't want to overstate the value of this book, but the development of the tools which are within you and accessible with this book as your guide is a priceless asset. I've re-bought this book as a gift for my sister and I hope she gains the same insight.

I ordered this book as I trusted Pat Pattison that it would be another very good and helpful book, after having read (and thoroughly studied) both "Writing Better Lyrics" and "Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure", two (IMO) fantastic books on lyric writing, in fact, probably the best you can currently get, out there. (..and I have read all Sheila Davis's books. ..which are also very recommendable, of course, but I prefer these.)Well, I wasn't disappointed in my expectations !The book is fairly new, released in September 2011, so it's well up-to-date.Admittedly, many of the ideas and suggestions introduced in the book have previously appeared in "Writing Better Lyrics" (which, I believe, was published in 1995), the main one being the 'ritual' of daily "object writing" - setting a timer for 1 and 1/2, 5, or 10 minutes, and in that time writing about a chosen object, person, time, or place, the objective being to draw on subconscious recollections of 'sense-memories'; that is, writing from one's seven (yes, seven) senses.But here the writing concepts and suggestions are treated way more in-depth than in "Writing Better Lyrics", and numerous writing examples from the author's students and collegues demonstrate the suggestions 'in action', whereupon the author then comments.The general concept of the book is that the author invites the reader to follow along on "14 day writing challenges": writing for a limited time each day along guidelines given by the author, and thus "exercising one's writing muscles", bit by bit. The book is devided into four such challenges, each introducing one new major writing-concept, or angle,..'technique', from the perspective of which the reader is then encouraged to practice their own writing, in order to strengthen it. There is an entry for each day of the fourteen then, and each day a little more detail is revealed about the major writing concept being dealt with during the challenge. And each day, several writing-examples of various writers demonstrate what is meant by the concept, and how it applies in actual writing.Anyway, I have only just finished the first of the challenges, so I can't yet speak for how the entire book will have worked for me. But I have seriously committed to doing the writing each day for the first challenge, and already I feel that firstly, it has strengthened my writing tremendously, mainly by making it way more vivid, and secondly I feel like the lyricist in me is constantly 'switched on' and ideas are constantly flowing (..especially while showering or doing the dishes - Eureka !! ;) ) - which is, of course, just wonderful for someone who really wants to write good songs. (And, incidentally, the author soberly yet confidently promises nothing less and nothing more than just that ! ..well, I can attest it's working for me !)Lastly, following through with such a course in writing will naturally sharpen one's own awareness of any writing and use of words one encounters, be it in novels, advertising, magazine articles, or other people's songs. Which in turn makes you appreciate and understand the great works out there even more, and learn from them, as well as make you aware that there is also plenty of very mediocre work being released all the time (and becoming successful), so it's ok to start small, knowing you will one day 'do better', because you're now working on aquiring the right tools and skills to do so.I have previously struggled tremendously with writing lyrics, my natural strength lying in the musical side of songwriting. In part, this is perhaps also due to the fact that I am not a native speaker of English, yet wish to write songs in the English language. Well, Pat's books, including this one, have laid it all out for me in such a way that I now feel I finally 'understand', and am confident that I can achieve my goal of writing good and meaningful songs in English after all. - so.. all Pat's books be highly recommended to any other non-native speakers of English wishing to write quality songs in English ! (of course, you'll have to put in the time and effort to really work through the material conscientiously, and keep working on your English as well..)In short: fantastic book ! - if you love great songwriting and are a budding songwriter, get it !!!!! (and all other books by the author.) - just the instructions you need to really improve ! (this applies to any songwriter.)

I am enjoying the writing exercises and even though I am not writing the prompt every day, I continue to write. I think it has been more about the timed writing which is helpful for now. Adding more descriptive parts is coming along. My friend with a master's in poetry told me that I am a lyricist. I thought I would give this a try and see if she could be right. So far it is debatable! The book is good regardless of what happens with me! I like to write. It doesn't have to be songs or poetry.