Books
The Free-Thinking Songwriter should be considered a companion for all levels of songwriters, from beginners to hit-makers as well as soulful, organic songwriters alike. This book is brimming with insightful words of wisdom relating to the "craft" but more importantly, Karl shares thoughts that we can adopt as daily mindsets on our path. What path? The path of The Free-Thinking Songwriter.
Great songs don't just happen, many ingredients go into their writing and composition and to understand the song you have to understand the inputs. To some people song writing is one of the mystical 'dark arts', to others it's a simple mathematical puzzle and, as ever, the truth is somewhere in the middle. In the Great Songs series we will show you how and why great songs are created, we'll increase your understanding, appreciation and enhance your listening experience by unpacking the ingredients in an informative and entertaining way.
While both The Beatles and Dylan shook the world in the early 1960’s, and they both went on to mature successes and even greater glories in their latter years, it’s their beginnings that occupy us here. They were such notorious and famous examples of different ends of the musical spectrum, but given their common antecedents and their common impulse to push boundaries in their art, it would seem destined that they would interact. They did establish personal relationships, and certainly they were to profoundly influence each other, but to go back to the start is to meet three starry eyed dreamers who were ready to take on the world….
In Beginnings Vol 2 we look at two of the most significant American popular songwriters of the modern era, both who rose to prominence during the tumultuous 1960’s and whose work and influence will live on for many years yet. In some ways it’s a tale of two coasts, as Paul Simon emerged from the pseudo-intellectual folk scene in New York, while Brian Wilson and his group, The Beach Boys, emerged from the nascent surf scene in Los Angeles, but both writers soon left any easy attempts at musical categorisation behind.
Discovering the joy of the epoch defining music and of the scarcely believable story of a certain Liverpudlian quartet, who operated in a small time window during the second half of the 20th century, seems to be an experience that will long outlive all those who lived through it. Apart from the music, which speaks for itself, a good place to find out about the people involved and what all the fuss was about is to work through their feature film output and to examine some of the better films that are centred on their story, or parts of it.
ZEN SONGWRITING PDF eBook $4.99
$4.99 That’s only a little more than the price of a cappuccino!
A collection of more than 50 original, inspirational thoughts on the beautiful craft of songwriting.
Carry these with you and turn to them for inspiration during any songwriting situation.
These aphorisms are intended to be a companion for any songwriter walking an honest path and can be used as if a mobile “app” and viewed in any pdf reader for all mobile devices and desktop.