#000448
Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting: 126 Proven Techniques for Writing Songs that Sell
Robin Frederick
*Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting* is a brisk, practical toolkit from Robin Frederick, a songwriter and industry insider who has clearly spent years thinking about what makes a song connect. Rather than lofty theory, it offers 126 concrete techniques—38 for lyrics, 30 for melody, and dozens more for structure and chords—each designed to solve a specific problem a songwriter actually faces. Its most distinctive idea is the 'ghost song': using an existing hit as a temporary structural scaffold to learn from, then building your own song in its place. More than a hundred 'Do It Now' exercises push the reader from reading to writing. Frederick's credentials—former A&R director at Rhino Records, producer of dozens of albums—give the advice weight. It's aimed squarely at the commercial, market-facing side of songwriting, and for that purpose it's one of the more genuinely useful how-to books out there.
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The author
Robin Frederick is a songwriter and author of several popular songwriting guides, including Song Starters and Shortcuts to Songwriting for Film & TV. Her industry experience is unusual for a how-to author: she served as Director of A&R for Rhino Records and executive-produced more than sixty albums, so her advice comes from inside the commercial music world.
The book
Published by TAXI Music Books in 2008, it is organized as a numbered set of 126 practical techniques—38 strategies for lyrics, 30 for making a melody fresh and memorable, and 58 more for structure and chord choices—supported by over a hundred hands-on "Do It Now" exercises. A signature method is the "ghost song": temporarily borrowing a hit song's framework to study how it works before writing an original in its place.
How to read it
It is unashamedly focused on writing songs that "sell," so its orientation is craft-and-market rather than art-for-its-own-sake. Read as a practical workbook—done, not just read—it delivers usable tools quickly, which is exactly its aim. Beginners and intermediate writers will get the most from it.
For more context
It pairs with Pat Pattison's lyric-writing books and with Jimmy Webb's Tunesmith.
Sources - Internet Archive - Amazon listing
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Robin Frederick
- Publisher
- TAXI Music Books
- Year
- 2008
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Music
- Location
- Colorado