Take It to the Bridge

You can order Take It to the Bridge: Unlocking the Great Songs Inside You by clicking on GIA, our publisher.

You can get it through Independent Publishers Group (IPG).

You can find it at one of the wonderful stores that stocks it, such as City Lit Books and The Book Cellar in Chicago, as well as Bookends & Beginnings and Squeezebox in Evanston.

And, of course, you can buy it on Amazon.

What is this book?

Songwriting can seem a mysterious, intimidating process, yet it’s also tremendously simple. We all have music inside us: melodies in our sentences, rhythms in our syllables, heartbeats and steps. Whether we harbor professional aspirations or just a love of playing music, many of us enjoy the art of creation. Some do so with guitar or pen in hand, some while seated at a piano or electronic device, some while taking a stroll and whistling. There is no wrong way — yet many of us struggle to tap into our abundant sources of inspiration.

Now comes a book to remove the barriers between you and your creativity. Steve Dawson and Mark Caro’s Take It to the Bridge: Unlocking the Great Songs Inside You (GIA) offers a lively, instructive dialogue about the art of songwriting; helpful chord, key and song-form charts; and creative assignments designed to inspire anyone who ever has thought of adding songs to the world.

Steve is the brilliant singer/songwriter of the band Dolly Varden as well as a musician’s musician who has played and sung with a diverse array of collaborators. Mark is a longtime cultural journalist who has written about everyone from New Kids on the Block to Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. After Mark took Steve’s  inventive songwriting class at the Old Town School of Folk Music, he jumped at his friend’s suggestion that they collaborate on a book that would combine the class’s best songwriting exercises with a deep exploration of the joys and challenges of creating your own music.

This is not a book about scoring hits and making money. It's discovering your artistic voice and adding beauty and truth to the world. We all yearn to express ourselves creatively. Let's unlock that process together.