Music Producing & Engineering
Course 7: Songwriting

In its simplest form, a song is something that can be performed with vocals and simple accompaniment—that’s it. When we think of a song at its most elemental level, we’re thinking about the relationship between lyrics, melody, and chord changes. How these three elements interact with one another can tell you a lot about the potential for a hit record. As a producer, it’s vital to be able to hear and recognize the potential for success.

You will learn about universal themes found throughout commercial records and why these themes are so easily identifiable with your audience. Course 7 will go into what makes relatable lyrics and catchy melodies and how to incorporate those into your music. Course exercises include creating melodies with a variety of methods, developing rhythm, and building methods with specific chord changes.

At the end of this course, you will be able to identify modern songwriting concepts, learn the importance of lyrics and melody for the songwriting process, explain modern music songwriting techniques, and apply those techniques to create basic song structure.

Your assignment for this course is to create two original hook melodies and sequence them using your digital audio workstation (DAW). You will then take these melodies and try them out over your previously recorded loops. You’ll also have the course review, quiz, and blog entry to finish the course.

Objectives:

• Be able to identify the concepts that make up modern songwriting.
• Be able to understand the importance of lyrics and melody during the songwriting process.
• Be able to apply the techniques explained in this course to begin to create basic song structure.
• Be able to identify songwriting techniques as heard in modern music.