I’m going to use this post to let you know about David’s new book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Art of Songwriting, coauthored with Casey Kelly. It just came out yesterday.

David Hodge and I live and work together and we both spend our days pretty much the same way: Writing books and on-line articles, teaching music, and doing the occasional live or studio gig. I teach piano; David teaches guitar and songwriting — plus bass, banjo, mandolin, ukelele, and a little piano. We sort of fell into writing books for the Complete Idiot’s Guide series, which despite its name, offers some pretty meaty content (written, of course, in a down-to-earth-easy to understand way).

David’s the author of Complete Idiot’s Guides to Bass, Rock Guitar and Guitar, and he’s going to be starting a book on playing ukelele. I’ve written titles on piano chords (a little, easy little “pocket guide” to using lead sheets and fake books), as well as teaching music and piano exercises.You can read more about these books at our music books page

 So… Songwriting. On this book, David collaborated with songwriter Casey Kelly, a Nashville-based Grammy-nominated songwriter who has written chart-topping hits performed by Tanya Tucker, Kenny Rogers, and George Strait, among others. The book covers music and lyrics, collaborating, business aspects of selling your songs, and gives plenty ideas on how to get going. The book benefits from the combination of David’s long experience teaching and writing about songwriting and music theory and Casey’s top-tier music industry and working-songwriter chops.