Two things about the music industry and songwriting make it the most exciting field to be a part of. The first is that it’s constantly changing. The second is that there is always more to learn about the subjects.
This poses an interesting problem that many would-be songwriters are blissfully unaware of…
In our endless search for more knowledge on the complex art of songwriting, we can easily reach for antiquated knowledge that might have worked in our parent’s generation of songwriters but isn’t adapted to the fast-paced and modern industry we’re in today. This is why we felt that a new list had to be created that matches the modern musical era.
Below are our favorite books on songwriting that every creative should be reading in 2023. And seeing how most modern musicians are always dabbling in the world of music production, we’ve also included a short list of the best books on that topic too. If you want old-fashioned advice on being a “music producer,” watch the video below to get it all out of your system. Because after that, it’s only clear, compelling, and modern advice for songwriting and music-making in 2023.
Best Books For Songwriting
Songwriting seems like black magic to anyone who has no idea how it’s done. But like almost any creative pursuit, there is a method to the madness, and by being able to systematize your songwriting workflow and learn how its pieces come together, you can quickly demystify the process and give you clear direction in your songwriting.
That’s precisely what these following seven books do, and by the time you’ve finished this small collection of resources, your songwriting success is almost guaranteed. Here are our favorite books on the complex art of songwriting.
Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius
This book is a hidden gem that I rarely see in any listicle piece on songwriting books and resources, and yet it is a complete and utter diamond in the ruff. Like many of the other recommendations on this list, Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius is part biography and a masterclass on what it takes to succeed as a musical artist.
This book dives into low-hanging fruit topics such as rhyming and structure but also covers the more ephemeral and rarely-discussed topics like an artist’s approach to words and the visceral effects that words have upon the artists and fans alike. If you want to gain invaluable insights into what it’s like to be a creative artist in the modern music industry, this book is for you.
The Songwriter’s Guide to Mastering Co-Writing: Real Pros Sharing Real Techniques
It’s not a secret that we often do our best creative work when collaborating with another artist. Collaborations fuel the music industry and the creative process, but getting the most out of working with another artist takes more than just showing up and doing the work.
The Songwriter’s Guide to Mastering Co-Writing: Real Pros Sharing Real Techniques helps songwriters, producers, and artists work better with other creatives and helps to maximize the time spent working together, and helps manage what happens once the work is complete.
Melody in Songwriting: Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs
Phenomenal lyrics don’t mean much in today’s industry unless the melody is infectious, and while it might seem like a good melody strikes us out of the aether and can’t be manufactured on demand, the truth is quite the opposite.
This guide reads a bit more like a college textbook, it is the Berklee Press after all, but it breaks down and analyzes what makes a good melody work and stays with us long after its initial listen. This guidebook demystifies the songwriting process using real-world success stories from artists like Robert Palmer and John Lennon. It helps you write unforgettable melodies on demand without having to wait for the muse to strike.
How to Be a Hit Songwriter: Polishing and Marketing Your Lyrics and Music
Much like I mentioned in the previous book’s description, a song can’t be a hit unless everything else around it is also in place. This book ensures that the modern masses hear your hard work and well-crafted art.
Marketing your songs and getting them into the hands of people who can move the needle for you is arguably more important than the quality of the work itself. Geared more towards songwriters who already have some experience, Molly-Ann Leikin’s book will help guide your practiced hand and get your work in front of the ears that matter.
How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back
Modern songwriters and producers are usually caught in a deadly trap; one that rewards those who constantly feed the algorithms of Spotify with more and more singles. As such, there is so much pressure to release new music that artists and songwriters can often feel detached from their work as they make a beeline to the finished product.
Jeff Tweedy’s book helps those willing to take a step back and appreciate their art for what it is. Not only that, it helps us view our songs in a completely new light; eventually guiding us to love our work and respect the paths we’ve walked (instead of looking at our past work and cringing).
The Addiction Formula
Songwriting and making a hit song have changed substantially since songwriting became an industry in and of itself. But so many guides and books that should be teaching you how to succeed in the modern songwriting game are teaching antiquated strategies and approaches that might have worked for the Beatles but aren’t relevant today.
This book uses modern-day examples to help pull back the curtain and see how some of the most significant records and songs were written over the past decade. Using artists like Drake, Maroon 5, and other 2020s chart-toppers, this book writes the formula for catching the attention of the masses.
Writing Better Lyrics (2nd Edition)
There is so much more to a killer song than just the lyrics and melody, and if even the smallest detail, like the song’s title, is even slightly offputting, your potential fans will hit the skip button before you’ve even hooked them in. Susan Hollister’s book helps to add frameworks and insights into your songwriting process from start to finish.
Not only does it help you write better lyrics, but it also breaks down conventional song structures and frameworks which almost all songs operate within. Once you know the boundaries that 90% of songs operate within, you can make a clear and conscious decision on where you want to position your own creative work.
Best Books On Music Production (Bonus)
In 2023, music production resources have become so accessible that most songwriters are also producing their music. And while this can be incredibly exciting, music production and audio engineering are entirely different disciplines. One could devote an entire career to producing music that songwriters work off of!
And while mastering both disciplines seems like an almost impossible challenge, these modern music production books will help streamline the process and get your tracks sounding as good as you need them to to get the songs you write signed by your favorite labels.
Making Music: Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers
Dennis DeSantis’ grey and unassuming book has become the music-makers bible for many Ableton users. So much so that if you’re looking to snag your hard copy, it will run you upwards of three times the amount that the book initially MSRP’d for!
Luckily, you can still access the Kindle version of the book, meaning that music producers and songwriters can dive into the multitude of creative strategies, workflow tips, and technical insights shared throughout this book. It’s a must-have for anyone looking for out-of-the-box ways to solve the issues that producers face almost daily.
Music Theory for Computer Musicians
This was one of the first books I picked up when I got into music production almost a decade ago, and to this day, it’s one of the ones I return to most often. Because it can be all too easy for modern-day producers to assume that they need a wealth of theoretical knowledge to produce music and the artists they look up to.
But this is entirely false…
Most of the best producers in the game only have a working knowledge of music theory, and Michael Hewitt’s book teaches you how to use basic music theory in creative ways to write impactful and punchy songs without diving into Julliard-level notation and theory-crafting.
Music Habits: The Mental Game of Electronic Music Production: Finish Songs Fast, Beat Procrastination and Find Your Creative Flow
This book, like the Abelton one above, acts more like a repository of workflow techniques and hacks to help you finish music. But where Making Music: Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers focuses on everything from technical solutions to Ableton-specific workarounds, Jason Timothy’s book is more about the mental challenges and solutions music producers and artists have to make throughout their careers.
You’ll get prompts to help you start making music in different ways, creative ways to think outside of the box, and so much more that helps you reframe what your daily creative process even looks like. It’s a gem and a book I find myself returning to and flipping through every few months.
The New Economics Of The Music Industry
Usually, I don’t particularly appreciate recommending these types of books, only because of how fast the music industry and production game changes nearly yearly. One complete bible on finding success in the music industry might offer all the answers one year and be completely irrelevant the next. As always, the music industry is only a small step away from being wholly upended when a new app, platform, or artist changes the game entirely.
But this one gets the pass, if anything, just because it’s written within the past few months and contains a ton of relevant information to help you navigate the financial side of the music industry. Books like these are invaluable, as they stress the financial and economic side of the industry instead of just the business’s creative and “fun” parts.
But the sooner you can understand that the music industry is a business and that everyone is trying to get their piece of the buy and make their ends meet, the sooner you can understand where you fit in the broader scale of things and start making serious steps to working in the industry instead of watching from the sidelines.
Anyways, Rant Over – Check Out The Book Here
Best Books On Creativity (Bonus)
Here are a few honorable mentions that might have absolutely nothing to do with songwriting or music production (or music entirely), but had a defining impact on many early careers of artists that we know. Making the jump from talented amateur to struggling professional is more about mindset than skill level or finances, and these books help frame your life and approach your daily lifestyle. They will help you start thinking like a pro before quitting your day job.
Atomic Habits
New Year’s resolutions fail because we tend to reach for the stars. Do you think you’ll uproot your life on a dime and start hitting the gym five days a week when before you broke a sweat just cooking dinner for yourself? Forget about it…
And in reality, grand gestures like this are only that; grand gestures.
Real and meaningful change in your life is much more likely to happen when you change a dozen tiny, small things throughout your life. Not from one single sweeping thing, you attempt to do differently. Atomic Habits is an argument for this exact case and helps you change tiny and completely doable stuff in your life for the better and how in doing so, your entire career and life can change for the better.
The War of Art
The creative process, regardless of what you’re creating, is an uphill battle. The creator faces many internal and external challenges between the initial idea and the finished product. And in that moment, it’s all too easy for creatives to think they are the only ones in the world to hit these walls and creative blocks.
But this book argues that you are not alone in dealing with these creative barriers; they are all a part of the journey. Once you identify that, you can deal with them with the same level of professional determination that you approach an inbox filled with emails.
This book is for you if you need actionable ways to beat writer’s block and determinedly push your career to new heights.
Turning Pro
One of the most challenging parts of being a professional songwriter or music producer is the fact that you’re your own boss, and nobody tells you the mindsets you need to have in place to stay on top of everything that needs doing daily. We’ve seen many producers get to a point where they can quit their day jobs and pursue music full-time, only to crash and burn at being their own boss and maintaining the momentum they had at the 9-5.
Turning Pro helps you start thinking of your career as an artist well before you get paid for it. It shows you how to approach your passion, like a job and spiritual pursuit. Take ownership of your career from its earliest iterations with Steven Pressfield’s invaluable knowledge.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
