Can you actually "learn" songwriting?

[Picktrade]

I see songwriting courses advertising all over the place and always wonder if you can actually be taught to write good songs or is it something you either can or can't do. Im sure none of the great songwriters ever took a course on how to write songs.

[Stackabones]

But they still learned. You only get to hear the good ones that got recorded, not the ones that were horrible beyond belief.

[blue2blue]

Everyone is built differently, but I don't see any reason that folks can't learn songwriting just like they learn to drive. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to be legendary racer Mario Andretti when they get done learning to drive. Or that for some it won't be easy and for others a hard slog.

 

That said, I, myself, am quite skeptical of most courses and seminars. They're usually done to make money, not because the person behind the course is just a natural born teacher who always wanted to help people.

 

You tend to find those people in real schools, whether they're inner city high schools or suburban community colleges; people drawn to teaching usually gravitate to schools. People drawn to money, usually set up seminars and lectures and then sell dreams.

[easilyspooked]

we all learned to write sonnets and haikus in school.

 

i think those classes aren't so much about being shown how to do something, though i've no doubt having meter and rhyme scheme explained might help some people, but i think they're more about discipline and practice. if you are in a class setting, you HAVE to do work, you must complete the assignment, and thus you practice, and practice makes perfect.

 

it's like people who hire a fitness consultant to watch them run on a tredmill, some people just need the motivation from an outside force.

 

i'm very much like this in my professional career, i NEED deadlines, pressure, in order to produce. i think that's what the classes would give you.

[easilyspooked]

...people drawn to teaching usually gravitate to schools. People drawn to money , usually set up seminars and lectures and then sell dreams.

 

never thought about it this way. very poiniant.

 

so, who wants to start a web seminar?

[Primaryorange]

Anyone can definatly learn to be a songwriter. It's not some talent you are born with, nothing is. Many of us can prove it when comparing our first ever songs to our most recent.

 

Those looking to master a craft. Often explore every open door and method in finding what works best with them.

 

So I am sure the legit ones can offer some insight. But it's nothing you couldn't learn on your own in your own way.

[espec10001]

Of course you can. There's no other way to do it other than learn. The best way to learn is by doing. I developed my own ways to write songs that might not work for others but they work for me.

[Matximus]

 

I see songwriting courses advertising all over the place and always wonder if you can actually be taught to write good songs or is it something you either can or can't do. Im sure none of the great songwriters ever took a course on how to write songs.

 

 

Absolutely. Of course you can learn. And there is no right or wrong way to learn. Classes are great, as they are really just a form of collaboration. Most people just learn by learning their favorite songs and copying them until they find their own voice.

 

And everybody writes bad songs. Most people can write OKAY songs. Very few people write really good songs.

[blue2blue]

never thought about it this way. very poiniant. so, who wants to start a web seminar?

With my database and CMS skills and your SEO skills we could... make a lot of money.

[easilyspooked]

no way you're a CMS cat? heck we shouldn't make a seminar, we should make a comprehensive seminar creation/update/marketing system to sell to people who want to make online seminars!

[blue2blue]

no way you're a CMS cat? heck we shouldn't make a seminar, we should make a comprehensive seminar creation/update/marketing system to sell to people who want to make online seminars!

 

Why stop there?

 

How to make a MILLION creating CMS systems to create seminars for selling seminars on HOW TO MAKE A MILLION!

 

Yeah... I think that was on Bernie Madoff's short list of ventures to explore next...

 

 

I'd say I'm more of a database cat who decided not to create another CMS system... Wheels, the world's full of 'em. I'm not inventing any more wheels.

 

A little more slack time on my hands than I'd like right at the mo, I've been prowling Craigslist looking at the bottom feeder adverts... looks like a LOT of folks have done the MLM seminar web-riches BS... every third ad is for a different party selling the same template-driven site-creation services... it's kinda depressing.

 

Am I off-topic again?!? Where's the mod? Oh... wait... I am the mod. [sigh]

[easilyspooked]

in the immortal words of Todd Snider,

 

"now to fit in on the seattle scene

you've gotta do somethin' they ain't never seen

so thinkin' up a gimmick one day

we decided to be the only band that wouldn't play a note

under any circumstances

silence

music's original alternative

root's grunge"

[rhino55]

 

Everyone is built differently, but I don't see any reason that folks can't learn songwriting just like they learn to drive. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to be legendary racer Mario Andretti when they get done learning to drive. Or that for some it won't be easy and for others a hard slog.

 

 

yep, and I would add all behavior is learned. Great song writers dont seem like they are working because it comes across as a way of life. Its really just a pattern of behavior.

[A Happy Crowd]

Are these courses geared toward musicians or toward people with no prior musical experience? If it's the latter, I'd stay away from it because I think the first step in learning to write songs is to learn how to play an instrument.

 

One of my favorite courses in college was a fiction writing class. She didn't lecture to us on technique, instead we mostly read other people's stories and discussed them. I found it very helpful and think my writing improved because of it.

 

A similar approach can be used to learning to write songs. Listen to a lot of different types of music and pay attention to what the composers did. Learn to play other people's songs and see how they put them together. Quite possibly the best musical education experience for me was when I bought a book of Beatles songs. Once I learned how to play some of their songs, it opened up a whole new world of ideas for me.

 

Learning music theory can help too and some community centers may offer affordable classes. If you take lessons for your instrument, a good teacher should be able to teach you theory as well.

[blue2blue]

Maybe if I'd spent time with a Beatles book instead of a Rolling Stones book when I was young and impressionable, I'd have a better grip on this whole bridge/middle eight thing.

[Chicken Monkey]

What a weird question. Can people "learn" to paint? Of course. Can people "learn" to build furniture? Of course. Songwriting? Definitely. I'm sure there is a great course on writing songs, however, I'm sure there's 100 scams out there as well.

[LeonardScaper]

I believe that with any discpline, including songwriting, the process of achieving proficiency involves three basic things:

 

Natural Ability

 

A Teacher

 

Practice

 

Should there be a deficiency in any of those three the others will need more attention.

[Stackabones]

Are these courses geared toward musicians or toward people with no prior musical experience? If it's the latter, I'd stay away from it because I think the first step in learning to write songs is to learn how to play an instrument.

 

[grantsabbath]

I definitely think you can. When I look at the first few things I wrote compared to what I write now, there is a definite improvement. Therefore, I would assume that I've learned to become a better songwriter.

 

You have to start somewhere.

[blue2blue]

I believe that with any discpline, including songwriting, the process of achieving proficiency involves three basic things: Natural Ability A Teacher Practice Should there be a deficiency in any of those three the others will need more attention.

It probably took me the better part of 4 months to sort of learn how to tune a guitar... broke more than my share of strings. And that was with an electric organ in the house to tune off of. (But I had a real problem isolating pitch in the sound of something. I could tune to another guitar pretty quickly. But tuning to a pipe or the organ was like... how you supposed to do it? They don't sound anything alike... That said, a tuning fork gave a pure enough tone that I took to that pretty quickly... er... relatively quickly. It was all uphill. On the glass mountain. With teflon slippers. In a headwind. In the sleet and rain. With a demon on my back. A tone-deaf demon.

[elsongs]

I taught a songwriting class about 4 years ago.

 

I used my iPod as an instructional tool! Taught about song structure, chord progressions, lyrics, arrangement, etc.

For the "final," we had an event at a local coffeehouse and my students performed (or had someone perform) their compositions. It was a real cool event.

[ido1957]

 

I believe that with any discpline, including songwriting, the process of achieving proficiency involves three basic things: Natural Ability A Teacher Practice Should there be a deficiency in any of those three the others will need more attention.

 

 

^^^^This^^^^^

[IanAlderman]

I believe that with any discpline, including songwriting, the process of achieving proficiency involves three basic things: Natural Ability A Teacher Practice Should there be a deficiency in any of those three the others will need more attention.

 

There are many pearls of wisdom on this thead, but the quote from Leonard echoes strong and loud. Yes, songwriting can be taught, but it depends on the person. So many different styles, so many different avenues to tread. Which is the best way? What way works for you? Me personally, I could not benefit from attending a class or a seminar. Just not my style- I taught myself how to play guitar, and I had been writing for about as long as I've been playing guitar.

 

I also think in addition to Mr. Leonard's view here should be Desire and Work Ethic. If you have no drive, no passion to create and keep going at it, natural ability and practice can carry you for a little while, but then your Craft will become stagnant.

 

Songwriting is a lifelong maturing process that just takes time and patience. If you go to a class, is it geared for songwriters who want to fine tune their Craft? Or is it for somebody who hasn't written anything since doing Haikus in grade school? That's a big difference as well. If you've been writing consistently for years and go to something geared totally to beginners, you won't learn much I think.

 

Here's some sites I found just now by Googling:

 

www.berkleemusic.com/school/courses/songwriting

 

Songwriting-Secrets.net/course

 

www.songu.com

 

www.musicianuniversity.com/courses/basic_songwriting.html

 

www.greatsongwriting.com/songwriting-courses.html

[A Happy Crowd]

Maybe if I'd spent time with a Beatles book instead of a Rolling Stones book when I was young and impressionable, I'd have a better grip on this whole bridge / middle eight thing.

 

I spent my young and impressionable days with a Beatles book and I still don't have a good grasp on bridges.

[eddieboston2]

Obviously songwriting not only can be learned, but it must be learned. Just as you had to learn to speak.

 

Since it's such a free-form art, anyone can write down a bunch of words and notes and call it a song. It won't be very good, but it's a start. Congratulations. Now you have to learn to write a good song. That will take the rest of your life. Just as you can get better at speaking by taking English courses and reading, you can get better at writing songs by taking songwriting courses and listening to good songs.

 

Just make sure you have a good teacher, that not only knows how to write good songs (better than you, at least), but knows how to teach writing good songs. The best songwriters are not always the best teachers, because they often write by "instinct" and thus cannot explain how to do it to someone else. If you want to judge a teacher, listen to his or her students.