Aims of the course
- To encourage and develop skills in independent composition of both lyrics and music.
- To build confidence in songwriting, so-writing and performance.
- To develop strategies for continued onward creative practice.
Target audience
This course is open to anyone with an interest in the subject. No previous experience or learning is required.
Course content overview
This is a course for anyone interested in writing songs, whether they consider themselves to be just beginners or more experienced songwriters.
Knowledge of one musical instrument would be beneficial but is not essential. We will be listening to and playing songs by ear so an understanding of formal musical theory or reading musical notation is less important than a good ear.
Each week you will be invited to write a new song and to share it with the group for positive and constructive feedback. You will develop your creative identity by considering your musical influences and identifying your musical origins. You will explore different song genres and structures and gain insights into how great songs work. You will develop your lyric-writing and melody-writing skills.
If you choose to share, you will get invaluable feedback on your songwriting as we go. We will have a ‘greatest hits’ sharing event on the last week. You will complete the course with a new confidence in your own songwriting abilities, armed with strategies to continue your own independent creative journey.
Schedule (this course is completed entirely online)
Orientation Week: 8-14 April 2024
Teaching Weeks: 15 April-19 May 2024
Feedback Week: 20-26 May 2024
Teaching week 1 - Your creative identity
In the first week we will begin to explore the question of who we are, and who we would like to be, as songwriters. We will start the course with the making of your personal creative family tree, and from that we will begin to formulate an idea of your individual creative identity. Exercises that spin off from this exercise include the generation of your very own inspiration playlists, and the identification of musical heroes -- and villains. We will start a group playlist (everyone adds one song they like a week) which we can continue to grow throughout the course.
Learning outcomes:
- To think about who you want to be as a songwriter
- To think about your creative 'voice'
- To identify your influences
- To research who influenced your influences
Teaching week 2 - How do songs work?
This week we will start to look at how songs work, lifting the hood and examining how components lock together. We will listen to some exemplary songs together by such masters as Cole Porter and Bob Dylan and start dissecting them, looking at how they are constructed and what makes them land. We will look at different song structures such as the ABABCAB, the AABA, and others. Then, using techniques such as song maps we will start building our own songs with a conscious eye on structure, shape and genre. We will add another song each to the playlist.
Learning outcomes:
- To develop a greater understanding of different song structures
- To develop a greater awareness of person and voice in song
Teaching week 3 - How do songs happen?
Songs rarely just come out of nowhere. Most songwriters have a series of exercises and disciplines to maintain their practice, so that when inspiration does strike, they are ready for it. We will look at some of the best creative exercises that you can carry out into the world after the course has ended to keep your practice going. We will look at the power of daily journaling and artists’ dates, creative square breathing, and ideas of crop rotation and ambient knowledge, to give them resilience and grit both for the duration of this course and beyond. These techniques create the spaces where songs bubble up. We will add another song each to the group playlist.
Learning outcomes:
- To investigate tools that enable songs to come
- To investigate tools that will allow you to develop your creativity
Teaching week 4 - Writing the words (to the tunes)
Using Laura Barton’s episode ‘Words’ of her ‘Notes on Music’ radio series, and Pat Pattison as a basis for this week focused on lyric writing, we focus on rhyme, internal rhyme and mouth feel of songs, why some words ‘sing’ better than others, and how we go about writing lyrics which express the paradox of expressing the universal in the particular. We will experiment with different lyrical forms to see which work, we’ll try David Bowie’s cut up technique with some newspapers, and we’ll try to figure out why some lyrics work, why some don’t. We will all add another song to the playlist.
Learning outcomes:
- To develop a heightened understanding of how to achieve connection with your lyrics
- To develop a heightened understanding of lexical rhythm and rhyme
- To inspire a new confidence to write lyrics that avoid cliché
Teaching week 5 - Writing tunes (to words) - chords, melodies, meanings, hooks
This week we’ll think about how the music part happens: how we find chord sequences (and try some fun ideas such as dice technique or Brian Eno’s 50 cards), melodies (taking a look at Jack Perricone), how music has meaning (see Kramer and that top note in ‘Heidelroslein’) and the endless quest for hooks. This is really a celebration of play this week: it’s important to play, to rummage, to open the mind and allow melodies to come in, and a melody rarely arrives when you’re looking straight on. We’ll practise the art of playing around and see what arrives. And we’ll add another song to the playlist.
Learning outcomes:
- To discover how to write melodies best
- To develop a deeper understanding of musical language
- To learn how to identify what makes an interesting melody
Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours reading material, etc., although this will vary from person to person.
While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material).
Virtual Learning Environment
Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (discussion boards etc).
Certificate of participation
A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/assignments for the duration of the course.
What our students say:
“I almost didn't sign up. I was feeling inexperienced in songwriting, embarrassed, lacking in confidence. I was worried that interacting with others about this musical topic in a text based online environment would be difficult. But - I am extremely glad that I did join, because the course has massively exceeded my expectations. Songwriting seems a deep & ancient topic. Each topic was fascinating. As the course went on, it became clear to me that the briefs for our songwriting work each week were a carefully designed sequence. The course felt (to me) very inclusive, and encompassed a wide and exhilarating variety of song. For me, the material has been at just the right level. My experience of sharing songs, giving and receiving constructive feedback in the private group, via the VLE has been absolutely amazing. A wonderful room of thoughtful and kind people. I feel empowered by this course, and I am grateful for what Polly and ICE colleagues have done here.”
“To me, it seems that music is a really difficult subject to talk about, using words. But I think Polly has done an absolutely amazing job here. With her videos, I feel I've been invited in to her shed for a chat with a friend who has an excellent grasp of this subject. She is leading me around this fascinating landscape - each week, humbly pointing out some beautiful things made by some amazing people. She is simultaneously relaxed and enthusiastic. Articulate and concise. Avoids jargon, yet leads us towards thoughtful books and other sources. In the videos, she conveys a lot of meaning through her intonation, the pace & rhythms of her speech, her body language. An effective, expressive, highly musical communicator. Calm, playful, clear and, I think, accessible. She makes the material relatable and practical. Her comments on the forum, giving feedback on songs that I and others had written, were kind and constructive and showed deep listening & thought. Generally, I feel that Polly has been a role model in communication for me throughout, demonstrating how to go about discussing this mysterious subject.”
