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Songwriting Basics 3


Expand your songwriting with more advanced techniques that help you create songs that resonate emotionally with your listeners.

This four-week course teaches a number of specific tools to enhance your lyrics and music—and how they work together to greater effect. You'll explore how to craft compelling lyrics by using metaphors, similes, and rhyme schemes, while ensuring that your lyrics carry emotional depth. You'll learn how to map emotional arcs within your lyrics to connect on a deeper level with your audience.

The course explores various musical modes and how they can color your songs, elevating both melody and harmony to match the emotions you're expressing in your lyrics. You'll learn to recognize and use the characteristic notes and chords of major and minor modes, such as Ionian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian, among others, to enhance your songwriting.

You'll work on refining one of your original songs, applying professional formatting techniques and cleaning up the lyrics to ensure clarity and consistency. You'll explore how small tweaks—like adjusting line lengths, rhyme consistency, and word choices—can have a huge impact on the overall feel of your song.

By the end of the course, you'll not only have a completed song, but you'll also have a deeper understanding of the songwriting process from start to finish, equipping you with the tools to craft emotionally impactful music.

What you will learn:

✔ Create vivid, emotionally engaging song lyrics using metaphor, simile, and varied rhyme schemes
✔ Identify and utilize major and minor modes (Ionian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian) to create songs with specific emotional tones
✔ Map out the emotional arc within a song's lyrics to help you strengthen the journey you take your listeners on
✔ Apply professional formatting and refinement techniques to revise and finalize a song for greater impact

Prerequisite Skills:

Next Session

April 28 - May 25, 2025

Teen and adult sections

VIEW ALL DATES

Tuition

$299

Ages

Teens: Grades 6-12

Adult Learners: 18+

Receive expert guidance
Learn from world-class faculty who provide personalized feedback
Learn at your own pace
Explore engaging video content and meaningful instruction
Meet your instructor and classmates
Join an optional weekly class to connect with other artists in real-time
Practice and create
Strengthen your craft over four weeks as you develop creative projects
Find collaborators
Collaborate on your projects—or just for fun—in direct messages and group chats
  • Computer or mobile device with Internet. Internet speed must be at least 1.5Mbps download and 800Kbps upload. For students using a mobile device, download the Canvas mobile app and select “Interlochen Online” as your school.
  • Word processing program, such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word, that can create PDF files.

No, course sections are designed for their respective age groups, either for adults (students 18 and older) or young people (students under 18).

Yes, there are eight sessions of courses per year. View the academic calendar for more session dates.

Interlochen Online certificateThis is one of three courses needed to complete the Songwriting Techniques certificate program.

Our online arts certificate programs are perfect for...

Adults looking to boost their creative résumé and LinkedIn profile

Teens who want to earn high school credit for their passion 

Upon completion of the program, you will receive a physical certificate and a shareable digital certificate. Certificates for students under 18 are accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS); high school-age students will also receive an official transcript to share with their current school for consideration for high school credit.

Interlochen Online's Learning Experience

World-class. Inspiring. Flexible.

Shane Adams

Instructor of Singer-Songwriter

Questions? Speak with an Advisor.

Email: online@interlochen.org 

Phone: 231.276.5990 

You can also schedule an appointment.

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An image of the cover and first few pages of the Songwriting Basics guide