Jimmy Webb - Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting

Copyright 1998 Jimmy Webb

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:

Webb, Jimmy.

Tunesmith : inside the art of songwriting / Jimmy Webb.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-7868-6131-2

1. Popular musicWriting and publishing. I. Title.

MT67.W32 1998

97-32584

782.42164 13-dc21 CIP

eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0568-0

First eBook Edition

Original hardcover and trade paperback editions printed in the United States of America.

www.HyperionBooks.com

Talking about music is like
dancing about architecture.

Martin Mull

by Harry Nilsson

If you write it on guitar

Place your guitar upon your knee

If you write it on piano

Dont do that

Place your fingers on the strings

Of your guitar, not your piano

If you write it on piano

Dont do that

Now strum or press to get a feeling

This might take a little time

Now think of something sad or something funny

Which inevitably brings us to the rhyme

Lets assume youre just an asshole

And theres nothing in your brain

It might help if you remember

These helpful little hints

Dont try to rhyme silver with anything

That goes for orange as well

Now notice how cleverly I just used them both

And all I have to do is rhyme well

Youve got to be tricky

To avoid these words takes talent

So never ever trap yourself like that

Or youll end up saying words like

Ballant, phallant, gallant, wallant

Callant, hallant well

Im sure youll catch on fast

Now some tips on tempo and

Some subjects to avoid

Like the use of the word baby

Unless you really have to say it

As to tempo, or as we say time

Thats strictly up to you because

That depends on how to play it

Now lets do one

Now think of a rhyme

Thats it, youre doing fine

Now think of the good time we just had together

If you practice these instructions

On the boat of song youll sail

And if you listen very carefully

Im sure you shallnt fail

I said shallnt, yeah shallnt

That rhymes with talent, that takes talent

That is talent

Oh my God, Ive done it again

Shallnt rhymes with talent

That takes talent

That is talent

Oh, I cant stand it

Oh my God, Ive done it again

Without my friend, manager, earliest editor,
research coordinator, computer-operator
and confidante, Robin Siegel,
this writing would have been abandoned
a thousand times over.

A ministers son from Elk City, Oklahoma, Jimmy Webb has been writing songs for over forty years. He has received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. A member of the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, he lives in New York State. For more information, visit Jimmy Webbs official Web site: www.jimmywebb.com.

Tunesmith may be the most interesting book ever written on songwriting. The sections on writing lyrics are riveting. Its for anyone who enjoys words.New York Daily News

Tunesmith [is] an eminently readable master class in songwriting-one that will thrill aspiring composers and lyricists, yet still interest the general reader.Albany Times Union

[A] persuasive and scholarly tome on the art of songwriting. Its a comprehensive volume that journeys generously from Victor Herbert to rap.Variety

Perhaps the finest book about songwriting of our time.Musician

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

Accidentals, 267

Accountants, 377

Adjacent tones, 170-71

Advertising industry, 326-32

Agents, 350, 365

Allegory, 84-85

Alliteration, 12, 66, 85

Alpha state, 185-86

Analogy, 84

Anapestic feet, 87-88

Archaisms, 73-74

A & R people, 336

Artificial line division, 80-81, 108

ASCAP, 315-16, 333, 335, 344, 360, 374, 382, 384-89

Ascending melody, 157, 158, 173

Assonance, 58

Augmentation, rhythmic, 174

Augmented chord, 200, 201-2, 237-38

Augmented interval, 158

Augmented rhyme, 58

Ballad, 47, 105-6, 110

Bar of music, 89, 90

Bass line, 225-33

chromatic tones in, 226-28,230-31

descending scale, 225

for minor chords, 228-31

melodic, 225-33

ostinado, 226

Bass note, 219-31, 262

alternate, 220-30, 232

pedal tone, 233-34

Bitonality, 237

Blank verse, 67, 70

Blues, 107-10

scale, 165-66

BMI, 315, 333, 335, 339, 344, 360, 374, 382, 384-89

Book writer, 317, 324

Borrowing, 7, 8-9

Breakdown, 133-34

Breakstrain, 114-15

Bridge, 113-18, 120, 122, 134, 276

Broadway musical, 322-24

Buy-out, 328

Cabaret, 320

Cadence, 67, 125, 213, 216, 229-30

deceptive, 195

Capo, 165

Chain-of-consciousness, 5, 52

Chordal composition, 16, 187-218

Chord charts, 16

complex, 238

Chord-driven melody, 212-14, 216-17

Chord progression, 182, 252-53, 266

creating for lyric, 257-58

creating for melody, 187-218

defined, 189-91, 200

as foundation, 154

message line, 268

woodshedding, 214-16

Chords, 13

adding to melody, 209-218

alternate basses, 253-54

augmented, 200

complex, 236-38

defined, 187-89

major to minor, 190

diminished, 200

diminished 7th, 204-5

inversion, 191, 232

inversions vs. voices, 206-7

minor, 255

modulation and, 241-52

more than three voices in, 252-55

need for interesting, 16

notation, numerals in, 189, 221

omission of notes, 232, 236

resolving suspended, 192

short hand for complex and

inverted, 254

six-chord, 202-7

spreading out tones of, 239-41

substituting major and minor, 195-97

substitutions and common tones, 194-207

suspending, 191-95

twelve-bar blues, 109-10

voicing, 191, 206, 231-32, 238-42

writing, 25, 219-41

Chorus:

chord-driven melody for, 212-14

defined, 118

fades, 133-34

lead-in to, 120-21

vs. refrain, 101-2, 111

rules of inclusion, 120

song form, 118-24

template, 145-50