Creative Songwriting Expert Track

What's the creative process like? How do you find inspiration? How could you use your imagination effectively? You’ll touch on all this — together with writing tips and techniques — to develop the ideas and themes that spark your own song creations.

With your ideas blossoming, you’ll need to know how to collect and organise them properly, refine your overall writing process, and write more purposefully. You’ll cover all these elements in this module, as well as tips and suggestions for translating your ideas into fleshed-out concepts.

Whether you start with a tune, a title, or a turn of phrase, try out different ways of crafting a song to see what works best for you. Along the way, you'll draw a clear line between your inspiration and your own songwriting voice.

Learn how to shape your inspiration into a fully-fledged piece of songwriting. You'll discover key songwriting tools and software, as well as tips and tactics for researching new ideas, overcoming stumbling blocks and working around your mistakes.

Starting from your very first draft, you’ll learn how to shape and refine every element of your song, think more objectively about your writing, and understand how parts like the melody and lyrics work together for a successful piece of music.

From double acts to entire teams, you'll explore famous instances of co-writing and uncover how and why writers work together. You'll also examine the benefits and pitfalls of partnering, to use for your own approach to songwriting.

In the first module on this course, you'll discover the history and stories behind a range of musical genres, learn how to identify and analyse them, and explore how they influence, complement and compare with each other.

What is pop music? Who is it for? And how did it develop? You'll find answers to these questions and more in this detailed module, which examines the history, lyrics and techniques of pop music, as well as its many subgenres.

With roots in creating music for the 'common' man, the folk and country genres famously feature storytelling and acoustic elements, with a strong focus on the structure of their songs and lyrics. Learn more about the genres, their subgenres, and how they blend together.

Explore electronic music and synthesising techniques like sampling and looping; learn about a range of electronic styles from early hip-hop to modern dubstep; and uncover how this enduring style of music shaped the rave scene and culture in the 80s.

From the iconic 12-bar blues to the energy of punk and glam rock's trademark flamboyance, explore one of the most varied genres of all. Uncover rock's huge cultural impact, get to grips with chords, and touch on technical elements like bent notes and time signatures.

Combining emotional blues with sophisticated jazz, soul gave way to a more accessible style. You'll get to know key artists and subgenres; unpack the politics of the time; and touch on trademark elements, like swung rhythms and the ‘call and response’ technique.

With every topic under the sun to choose from, how do you decide what you want your songs to be about? In this introductory module you’ll experiment with different creative writing techniques, find inspiration and uncover your own unique lyrical identity.

Drawing on examples of influential lyrics and songwriters throughout history, in this module you’ll immerse yourself in the technicalities of style, form and formatting — from rhyme schemes and classic structures, to how to use melodic math.

You’ve mastered the basics and got your ideas — but how do you turn them into real workable song drafts? In this module, you’ll learn how to craft and edit lyrics that you and your listeners will love.

There’s more to lyric writing than just choosing words that sound good. In order to connect with your audience, you’ll need to have a strong understanding of literary devices — from imagery and metaphor to tense and characterisation. Here, you’ll take your lyrics to the next level to make them truly memorable and unique.

Every genre of music has its own indicators and tropes, and understanding these can be helpful when it comes to crafting your lyrics for a specific musical style. You’ll examine these in more detail through this module and learn how to spot the patterns and styles that really speak to you.

Combining emotional blues with sophisticated jazz, soul gave way to a more accessible style. You'll get to know key artists and subgenres; unpack the politics of the time; and touch on trademark elements, like swung rhythms and the ‘call and response’ technique.