Hullo! I've dug out the old guide and it's had a bit of extra stuff put in it about lyric-writing.

For those of you who don't know the Ravenspiral Guide, it's a free digital book about music theory for the rest of us covering melody, harmony, rhythm, lyrics and structure. If you're curious to fill in gaps in a patchy understanding of how chords go together, if you want to learn how to write a rap, or if you've never had any joy writing melodies and want some tips, this is the book for you. Most uniquely, there's no need to be able to read music to use it since it spells out all its examples with the names of the notes.

Find it at http://www.ravenspiral.com/ravenspiralguide.pdf.

Hi
Thanks! Looks very interesting on first read over.
Cheers
Paul

This guide really is excellent - I'm going to read it again.

Wonderful! Ravenspiral guide is just excellent. For writing which is fundamentally instructional, I think you got the tone just perfect. Informal and sharp enough not to seem stuffy (and I think your writing has a good sense of movement considering the subject matter) yet always well away from the obverse though equally off-putting cutesy side of things as well.

As for the theory itself, it's in your aim that it's stripped down, but I think it covers the most useful areas there are to learn. It's a mainstay in my bag and even my girlfriend, typically hostile to learning from text alone, gets along with it.

Thank you very much for this.