This is a book about songwriting – and although not an exact or complete copy, the idea for this book was born out of the worldwide amazement and adoration of pop artist, singer and songwriter ‘Sia’; full name Sia Furler, a 38-year-old musical wonder from Australia. She recently wowed audiences as she demonstrated her immense talent for songwriting in an interview with long-time talkshow host Howard Stern and Chris Connelly for Nightline. You can watch her full interview on our blog post.

During the radio interview, Sia revealed her ingenious songwriting technique in the creation of the Rihanna-sung pop chart topper “Diamonds”: the process began as she had her producers play her a backing track, to which she simply hummed a melody. While humming – almost singing – the words “diamonds in the sky” simply slipped past her, unintentionally. Then, with her voice recorded over the piece, she simply listened to it again and wrote over the entire thing, using her hummed melody as a phonetical guide for her lyrics.

The entire process took her less than an hour – in fact, she’s been quoted as saying that it look 14 minutes to get it done.

First of all, this isn’t just the work of a genius – there is technique and practice behind Sia’s skill, such that any musician can take a page from her book (or this one) and try their own hand at writing music. With her skill, Sia went on to write smash hits like “Titanium” for David Guetta, as well as songs by Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Kesha and so on. She wrote her own first piece, “Chandelier”, earlier last year (2014) – and it exploded through the charts, with fans and music lovers everywhere voting the song to number 1 on the 10 Best Songs of 2014 by Billboard.com. She recently unveiled “1000 Forms of Fear”, and seems to be doing quite well.

This book, in particular, focuses on teaching advanced musicians how to write a song, and develop a melodic idea into a full-blown composition, by starting with a fragment of melody. Written in an organized, step-by-step approach, readers will be able to formulate a completely original, personal and emotional work, simply by letting their own creativity and talent go into an unshackled overdrive.

What this book is not:

Although not designed for the absolute beginner -- the contents will provide a simplified overview of a song-writing process based on Sia's technique. However, for those with basic knowledge in music theory, harmony, and are fairly skilled in the instrument of their choice – be that the guitar, keyboard, violin, or vocal chords – or any other instrument – to the point that they vaguely know how to read and write music for their instrument on a basic to intermediate level -- can easily grasp the concept presented by the eBook and implement the technique right away. If you’re less skilled in the instrument-playing-department, another alternative is learn how to use a music notation software to lay down your melody and harmony experiments to get a pretty good idea of how your work sounds like. If you’re newly self-taught, or are looking to start writing music, then check out ‘How to Write New Music’ – the 2-book series on music theory, harmony, melody, and the systematic method to make your own music.

This book also doesn’t feature lyrical writing – it sticks to referencing the basics of harmony and melody, and how you can emulate Sia’s songwriting technique to prompt your own musical epiphany through a few systematic tips and instructions. Therefore, it’s solely focused on instrumental music.