Song Maps: A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics Paperback – June 26, 2016

Song maps has given me a completely new perspective on the art of songwriting. Like many other aspects of the music industry, they are probably hundreds the books written about songwriting, but none using the technique of song maps. This is a tried and tested technique developed by the author himself who has had a very successful career in the songwriting capital of the world, Nashville.The author recounts how he would typically be hired to write in collaboration with at least one or two other writers in a 3 hour songwriting session and a lot of the examples and revelations that he gives have come from those experiences.In this book, Hawkins describes seven song maps (or blueprints if you like) that can be used when developing and writing a song, particularly if you regularly collaborate with others.The great thing about this book is that the author takes each song map and provides a huge array of song examples from multiple genres, each of which he dissects to explain the relevant song maps in greater detail.At the end of every song map, the author provides exercises that the reader can undertake to solidify their understanding of the song map in question.The author concludes by encouraging the reader to embark on further study of song maps and reveals even more songs maps that were not covered in detail in the book.Even though the author writes from the perspective of collaborating with others, the idea is to help the reader formulate strong song ideas that can be developed into songs of substance. Songs that will move people and be remembered for all the right reasons.Song mapping is a technique that can be used in collaborative songwriting as well as solo songwriting.As someone who enjoys writing songs, I am looking forward to exploring song mapping in greater detail and experimenting with it in my own writing.If you are a songwriter already, or if you are you looking to start songwriting, this book is a resource that you will come back to again and again as you seek to develop your craft.An easy, insightful and informative read.

This book was perfect for me as an aspiring musician. I've had dozens of random song ideas and song titles over the years but no thoughtful nor efficient approach to go about formalizing these ideas into a song. I've just been stream-of-consciousness dumping lyrical lines or thoughts in OneNote, or as voice recordings. If you are seeking a more concise approach to writing and structuring lyrics, I highly, highly recommend this book.Simon has created a fantastic framework that helps you take an idea you have for a song title and evolve it into a structured song with lyrics. Lyric writing can otherwise be a "Wild West" creative process with no boundaries or laws. The system isn't meant to be constricting, it's just a fantastic starting point, as he does encourage you to create variations or experiments outside of the prescribed system once you feel ready.I especially love that (A) the book is not super long and overly verbose; it's powerful and pithy and (B) he uses specific examples from several different genres and time periods. including hits from the days of Ella Fitzgerald to more recent hits—at the time of writing this review—like Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", Kelsea Ballerini's "Peter Pan", or Lukas Graham's "7 Years". He analyzes the structure of these songs without getting too "in the weeds." Short and sweet.He notes that not all genres have a strong emphasis on being lyric-driven. As aspiring musicians, we have an opportunity to carve out how music will sound in the future, and if a genre today can become more lyric-driven. Personally, I love the sounds of EDM but—with few exceptions —the genre is mostly devoid of original, thought-provoking, moving lyrics. This book will help me explore this route.Thank you Simon for creating this book. I am grateful for it.

Informative I found that this book takes a naturally intuitive approach to song writing that we all may been using without knowing. That being said I found it to be a refreshing new way to look at song writing. Formulas and recipes take out the guess work. If thats what your looking for this is a good read.

The Benefits I Acquired From This Book:* I can focus on a single theme/concept/story and expand on it through the second verse, bridge, pre-chorus, and refrain.* I am able to write the second verse or bridge with ease.* I am able to write lyrics very quickly.* I am able to experiment with my lyrics using seven different song maps that are taught in the book..* I am able to enjoy the song examples in the book especially the musicals and jazz genres, including, I See the Light from Disney's Tangled, Thank You For the Music by ABBA, Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You by George Benson and New York, New York, which are my favorite songs. There are also a bunch of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein examples.My Cons On This Book* The author Simon Hawkins claims that he has won various prestigious awards and is Grammy nominated, but I read the lyrics of his original songs, found in the book and I thought they were lame-ass and sucky.* At first I thought this is another useless songwriting book to max out my money when the author Simon Hawkins was like drifting to unrelated topics and outlandish stories, on the first half of the book.* I feel that the Pop Trashes and CCM song examples are a dreadful additions to the book. I am a Bible Readin', Bible Memorizin', Prayin' Christian BTW, but I don't like the current "Worship" "music" that is coming out right now. But that's a story for another day.