If your notebook is full of unused lyrics and you’re struggling to find inspiration for the music, this course is for you. Whether you are an experienced songwriter looking for new ideas or a beginning songwriter learning to read music, this course will lead you to a rich source of songwriting possibilities.
Led by award winning songwriter and Berklee College of Music professor Scarlet Keys, you’ll learn to construct strong, expressive melodies that your audience will remember as well as experiment with new chords to break out of any harmonic rut. Whether you are new to writing music or are looking for new ideas to change up your songs, this class will teach you how to make deliberate choices with your harmonies and melodies to best emulate the emotions you want your audience to feel. You will start by discovering common chord progression and tying specific emotions to each chords in a scale. Then you will practice changing the harmonic and melodic rhythm of a song to better highlight important lyrics. Finally, you will learn to create melodic hooks and simple techniques to help you generate new melodic ideas.
RM
Truly exceptional class, I am grateful Berklee makes this content available on Coursera
ER
This course will be frustrating for anyone who does not read music. I had to check several references to answer some of the questions in the quizzes. But the professor shared many useful tips!
BM
 That was a great course and I loved the chords lessons in songwriting.Thanks.
FR
A very helpful course. It helped me a lot when it comes to harmonic rythm
HN
incredibly helpful! great starting point for aspiring musicians! I learned a lot from this course, it was a rewarding journey!
HV
Super helpful primer on the key things to think about when selecting chords and rhythms for a song!
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5 star for the content of the lessons, by the stellar Scarlet Keys. She will help you raise your game in making your music express the emotions you wanted to convey. Note: the videos from this course are available for free on Berklee's YT channel, so if you don't need the certificate...
Minus 1 star for the outdated and clumsy user experience from Coursera: impractical, difficult to navigate and confusing. The peer-rating system is particularly bad. Time to completely rethink it.
This was such a wonderful course. I had taken music theory in college and had the classical training, but this course is exactly what I wanted to learn beyond what I was taught. Scarlet does such a great job conveying the emotions that are associated with certain chords and chord progressions and really breaks down what you need to create prosody in music. It is challenging, but in the best way possible.
That was a great course and I loved the chords lessons in songwriting.
Thanks.
A very helpful course. It helped me a lot when it comes to harmonic rythm
loved the course, learnt a lot.
Great course. You'll learn about which chords and melodies - along with the lyrics - invoke specific emotions. I would say that the only downside is that it's more geared toward piano/keyboard players instead of other instruments. An understanding of basic music theory is a good idea before starting this course.
Ha sido un curso muy inspirador, las ideas propuestas por la profesora resultan muy útiles y las tareas están muy bien planteadas. Es un buen material al que regresar siempre que las musas estén visitando a Beyoncé :)
It really helped me understand how the music plays a part in a song, working with the lyrics. It encouraged me to try out stuff and write fearlessly.
incredibly helpful! great starting point for aspiring musicians! I learned a lot from this course, it was a rewarding journey!
Super helpful primer on the key things to think about when selecting chords and rhythms for a song!
Truly exceptional class, I am grateful Berklee makes this content available on Coursera
So helpful, fascinating, funny and interesting.
I highly
Recommend
this course!
This is a great course!
I love it. Thank you!
wonderful course
Great course!
the best
ok
This course will be frustrating for anyone who does not read music. I had to check several references to answer some of the questions in the quizzes. But the professor shared many useful tips!