This is a must have for any guitar player trying to write songs, especially the singer / songwriter type. This book is filled with ideas for songs and how to incorporate the guitar into your songwriting. What I like most about this book was the numerous chord progressions listed and what mood each progression can create. It gives examples of songs that use the progressions and what genre of music they fit best. I loved this book and use it regularly. If you are looking to write music and lyrics this is a must.

To be honest, I've owned this book forever but after seeing someone ask about it on another forum, I just wanted to log in here and write a quick review of it as a warning to potential customers because I found it so poorly executed. This book basically consists of Rooksby very quickly presenting a topic in overly simple terms and then citing hundreds of examples of existing known songs that are supposed to illustrate his idea. This sounds like a great idea in principle but in execution it all falls apart. The examples read like pure fluff and do not cover any detail whatsoever, he does not even go into high level things like chord progressions, etc, from the examples. I presume this is due to copyright restrictions, etc. It would have made much more sense to license a few decent examples and really show how they illustrate the point. Or heck, the book is about song writing, why not actually WRITE a few over the course of the book??

The CD that came with the book is literally content-free, too. There's almost nothing on it. Again, this is in spite of all of the external music cited (some of it obscure) and due to the lack of specifics in the book. The CD can literally be thrown away without harming use of the book. It appears to be included in the book as reassurance that there is something there... i.e. a marketing move more than a useful resource for the customer.

So, really, in spite of the hundreds of general examples cited in the book, there is not a single specific detailed piece of information I can remember off hand. Ie. almost no tab, chord diagrams, or sheet music style content. Almost nothing specific about the guitar's interaction with the rhythm section and the specifics of writing for the rhythm section or vocal melody are covered either. And of course, the tell-tale item: nothing is composed/written by Rooksby for the book.

Looking at the presentation, its very slick. The book looks nice, the layout is great, the writing style is enthusiastic, its easy to WANT to like it but when it comes down to it it's good looking book that doesn't achieve its objective. I regretted the time I spent reading this book hoping for it to get better... Thankfully it's extremely short too, but I won't even bother going there at this point. ;)

So, basically, this book is just flat out not useful and the time spent looking for a different, more suitable, book on the topic will be rewarded many times over.

Also, avoid Rooksby's "Riffs" book as well, it suffers nearly the exact same set of problems as this one.

It's not a guitar method neither a complete songwriting book. Perhaps it's both, but I find it quite boring and not focusing.

I've spent quite a bit of money on songwriting books, yet this seems to be the only book I use anymore. It won't teach you how to play guitar (tuning, how to hold the guitar, etc.), rather it assumes you have a basic understanding of the guitar and moves forward from there.

Whether you know only how to strum three chords, or whether you're a walking chord dictionary and can shred a 12 minute solo--if you want to write songs this book is for you. Rooksby goes over everything you could possibly want to know about constructing a song. The information in this book is comprehensive, well paced, and divided up in a logical, easy to follow way. There are also lots of well-illustrated and very helpful colored diagrams.

If you have a guitar and have even an elementary knowledge of the instrument--if you want to learn how to write songs on it you need this book. It will take you from hummer and strummer to legitimate songwriter. I can't recommend it enough. This is my Bible for songwriting.