Reviewed by ED TEJA for MUSE’S MUSE [musesmuse.com]
9/29/09
If you are a performing songwriter or the songwriter in a band, you
probably already know that there seems to be a large difference between a "good song" and a song that is good for your act. Many great songs just don’t seem to go over. Perhaps what you haven’t worked out is what song crafting factors make those differences.
CAT COHEN’S book
SONGWRITING FOR YOUR ORIGINAL ACT takes his songwriting experience and focuses in on giving you some guidelines for crafting songs that will fit your act to a tee….. This book takes a look at some of the elements you can craft into your material—not boilerplate solutions, as those would be anything but fresh, but a more nuts and bolts look at some of the ingredients and how they work, and how they combine.
The first part of the book takes you through something of a songwriter’s marketing checklist to help you position your act. What is original about your songs or band and how are your songs helping strengthen that message? He takes you through an analysis of your audience, your genre, and your core message that will help you define yourself.
In the second part of the book, Cohen tackles some song crafting guidelines that you can use to craft tunes to fit the image you’ve now defined. Cohen tackles issues such as the groove—what affect do various tempos and meters have on your song and how does the kind of syncopation influence the groove? Amid some more or less conventional information are gems such as, when writing lyrics, focusing on the relationship between the singer and the person the song is sung to. The description of song sections and forms also provides some good food for thought. If you understand the real purpose of each section, such as the chorus, then you can move from writing something that is like songs you’ve heard, to crafting one that serves your purposes.