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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics by Berklee

4.8
stars
848 ratings

About the Course

There’s a songwriter lurking somewhere inside you, peeking around corners, wondering if it’s safe to come out. Now it is. This course is an invitation to let your inner songwriter step into the sunlight. All it takes is a simple “yes” and you’ll be climbing that windy hill, marveling at the view. If you haven’t written any or many songs, this course will show you an efficient, effective process for tailoring songs to express your ideas and emotions. If you have, you’ll look at your process differently, taking control of aspects of the process you may have not noticed. The course will start by examining the tools available to you, all revolving around the essential concept of prosody. You’ll learn to use your tools to enhance your message—to work compositionally at the same time you’re developing your ideas. You’ll be working both lyrically and musically, though musically it’s not necessary that you either read music or play an instrument. If you play, great, and you’ll be encouraged to play and record your musical responses to the assignments. If you don’t play, the course offers you a number of musical loops to work with. All you’ll have to do is sing your melodies over the loops. Assignments will ask you to post something for peer review—sometimes lyric lines or sections, sometimes melodies, sometimes both. None of it has to be polished. The course is about writing, not performing. Most important, you’ll have a lot of fun....

Top reviews

CS

Feb 12, 2021

This course helped me get over the hump of not being able to write songs. I want to thank Sir Pat for helping me organize my ideas and refine them so that I can tell good stories. Thank you sir!!

GH

Jan 15, 2021

I have been to dozens of workshops and have read dozens of books and have written hundreds of songs. I learned more in this course than in any of the workshops or books. This it top rated stuff!

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251 - 275 of 294 Reviews for Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics

By Daniel N d S

Nov 3, 2016

Awesome!

By S.M A S A

Jan 13, 2021

awesome

By Alejandra B

Aug 24, 2016

GREAT!

By David O

Jan 24, 2022

Great

By Quang H L

Oct 25, 2021

Good

By Hai y

Jun 7, 2018

tQ

By Greg T

Feb 4, 2019

W

By Andrew N

Oct 24, 2020

I really found this course extremely helpful. Thank you. I loved the course, love Pat's teaching, have been to a couple of his seminars in Melbourne, Australia. I have three of his books and found that this course just made me do al the things I've read and heard him talk about. The only reason I didn't give it 5/5 stars - which I think it is worth - is at the very end (Week 6) I had a peer review from someone whom I don't think understood enough about what they were supposed to know! They failed me, whereas upon submitting exactly the same submission was given 65/65. I had also been given 65/65 from someone the week before in Week 5. I found that frustrating, knowing I had spent time working on the very things the assignment was aimed at ... BUT GREAT COURSE - not sure if anything can be done a bout that final week... THANKS again!

By Jill G

Mar 19, 2022

I really enjoyed this class for the most part. Pat was great. He definitely HELD my attention. I struggled a little bit with the peer review assignments. I don't really feel qualified to review other people's hard or not so hard work. I kind of wish perhaps people who actually know what they are doing would review our assignments. I also struggled with trying to figure out the whole rhythm matching with syllables thing. It is sometimes very difficult to figure out which syllables are stressed. The obvious ones that have mutliple syllables and hold an important position in the lyric are easy. However, the less obvious ones were difficult, many times being the beginning of the line. It is kind of hard to explain here. Overall, I learned a great deal from this class and was very thankful to have access to it!!!! Thank you.

By Saee J

Nov 1, 2017

All the concepts were taught very well. I liked the assignment and quizzes too at the end of the week as they were really exciting and interesting to do. What I liked most was reviewing fellow peers and getting their feedback on assignments submitted by me too. I felt like I was learning along with really helpful and honest classmates thanks to the forums and online feedback from them. Although the learning process is to be done on your own it still never felt lonely because of all the forum section and the peer graded assignments especially which really helped me feel like I am a part of a community of like minded people having similar interests and passion for learning. Loved the course! Also, Thanks to our wonderful tutor, Pat, and Berklee College for making this course and the lessons so much fun and easy to understand! Cheers!

By Jeff T

May 23, 2019

The principles of this course are phenomenal. Not only did I learn a ton, but the information is something that I will keep with me in my writing forever. Some of the videos are hard to follow and can be a bit confusing. Using the videos plus the reading material together really helped. The peer grading can also be a bother for I'm not sure that all of the peers fully understand what they are doing (I know I don't always). This can stop you from moving on if you don't score high enough on the quiz's in the paid version of the course A summary of key points at the end of each segment would also be helpful. Other than that, this course is truly eye opening and valuable.

By Randy P

Nov 1, 2022

So I'm oscillating between a 3 and 4. The course material is great and helped me significantly in my song writing approach. Especially putting the lyrics to a rhythm. And if you actually read and study the material in the books it will take longer than stated. It was more challenging than I had assumed.

that said:

Some weird stuff happened when I tried logging in directly. I had to log in through my google acc. second I'm glad I still had my desktop because there are issues using iOS.

Some questions had no right answer.

You have to purchase the instructors books. Hmmmmm. but they are good and I happened to have 2 already.

By Nicole E H

Feb 23, 2021

Fantastic content, hugely useful and instructive book suggestions (there are 2 books - highly recommended) and well planned video lessons. As my first songwriting course, I’m still swimming in choice of new tools to play with. I took 7 weeks to complete the course and was glad I did. I needed that extra time to let concepts integrate. The peer feedback system is a little ‘luck of the draw’as it’s depends on the experience of the peer. I mostly received useful and specific feedback. I’d recommend this course to all interested in upping their songwriting game!

By Paola M

Oct 29, 2018

The lessons were really helpful in filling the gaps I had in my knowledge! Moreover, I was able to pick up a lot of tips that have made my songwriting process go more smoothly. Perhaps the only qualm I have with this course was the grading and rubric system for the peer reviews, in that the most minor of mistakes can result in a dramatically lower grade in an assignment. That aside, however, I had a good experience taking this course and am sure to use what I learned in the future.

By Natasha D

Jan 7, 2024

This is a great course for developing song ideas and gaining some basic skills to get a project finished. Someone brand new to songwriting will probably get the most out of it, but if you're already writing you'll probably pick up some skills to improve your craft and get through creative blocks as well. I found it a little formulaic but at the same time, it kind of makes sense for what it is and I'm glad I did it overall.

By Mick C

Sep 3, 2016

The course material and the instructor's lectures are excellent. However the quizzes are programmed incorrectly--marking wrong answers right and right answers wrong too often.

I gained a few skills that I now put to use when writing songs. The course also provided some insightful information on prosody, phrasing, and a little bit of history. It was definitely worth the time I invested in doing this course.

By Pragnya A

Sep 20, 2020

I loved the course! I'be seriously never come across an course un arts that is so effective. But since I am not from a musical background, I couldn't follow week 5 and 6 very well. I wish theere was something to accommodate us. Maybe you could have put some videos or rather, readings, for people who dont know the basics of music like keys, notes, tones etc. But otherwise good course.

By Dan F

Sep 29, 2019

Lots of great thought-provoking content, decent homework assignments. Well worth it.

4/5 stars because you get very little quality individual attention. Your assignments are graded by your peers, who don't know any more than you do, and often a lot less.

It was useful to me to grade others' work, tho. It made me think about it differently.

By Tess H

Aug 29, 2018

The only reason I didn't give the course four stars is that it is so rich, I need to take it again! When I've completed it the second time (very time-consuming) and can really appreciate all the professor has to offer, I'll raise to five!

By Aisha K

Aug 22, 2023

A lot of songwriting tools were introduced. It felt like I was learning many things about something I'd already been doing for so long.

I wish the explanations around rhythms and building structure were a bit better.

By Mark B

Dec 11, 2016

A great course, learned a lot but due to not being in a position to purchase the certificate OI could not submit quizzes or assignments, such a shame as I could not get feedback

By Martina R G

Feb 9, 2019

It was a great course with a highly knowledgeable instructor. Just make sure quiz answers are updated regularly, as many answers were marked incorrectly when they were correct.

By Nichita B

May 2, 2021

Great practical exercises and lectures. More can be done on the peer review side and also connect students (apart from the FB group).

By Sweekruti M

Sep 27, 2019

Thanks to Pat for sharing his knowledge. It was a great course and I got to learn a lot. Excited to keep writing. Thank you. :)

By Anish M

Dec 19, 2020

Pretty good but may be challenging for anyone who is just starting our to learn Music but a good course overall.