Songwriting and Music Production at Interlochen Online

From ideation to completion, discover effective tools for crafting emotionally impactful music.

Intro to Interlochen Online

What you’ll get

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    Organize your lyrical ideas in written form and place them in songs in a way that connects with listeners

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    Create vivid, emotionally engaging song lyrics using metaphor, simile, and varied rhyme schemes

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    Map out the emotional arc within a song's lyrics to help you strengthen the journey you take your listeners on

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    Identify and utilize major and minor modes (Ionian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian) to create songs with specific emotional tones

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    Create compelling melodies with an understanding of the roles that song sections like chorus, verse, and bridge play in expressing your ideas 

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    Use various chord-coloring techniques to add depth and interest to your harmonic progressions

Learn Songwriting and Music Production at Interlochen Online

Songwriting Basics 1

Learn to write songs by drawing on your musical influences through the lens of three aspects of songwriting: lyrics, melody, and chords. In this course, you will explore the different parts of a song—the chorus, verse, and bridge—and the role each plays in connecting with listeners. 

You’ll learn how to organize and highlight your lyrical ideas based on how listeners process information, write melodies that use contrast effectively, and choose chord progressions that best match the color or mood of your songs. 

The course is not only a fun journey into your musical tastes, but also a practical method for generating ideas and turning them into tangible creations that express who you are. 

Songwriting Basics 2

Learn to write powerful lyrics, expand your harmonic palette, and craft melodies that draw in listeners.

Strengthen the three essential facets of your songwriting: lyrics, harmony, and melody. This course teaches you advanced rhyming techniques, exploring everything from perfect rhymes to creative alternatives that will add depth and substance to your lyrics. You'll learn to break down words into their component sounds, opening up a richer landscape of word choices that contribute meaningfully to your songs.

The course explores how to breathe new life into your chord progressions, using approach chords, note-based chord selection, and other strategies that will add color to your compositions. You’ll also discover ways of creating transitions between verses and choruses, allowing you to craft unified melodies that effectively convey the emotion of your song.

Songwriting Basics 3

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

You'll learn how to map emotional arcs within your lyrics to connect on a deeper level with your audience and learn to recognize and use the characteristic notes and chords of major and minor modes 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.

Recording and Producing Music for Beginners

This hands-on music production for beginners course will teach you how to record and produce music at home. You will learn how to record with a microphone, at the appropriate levels, into a digital audio workstation (DAW) and use that software to build and shape what you record into great-sounding music. 

You will develop a solid understanding of the basic features of a DAW so that you can create tracks using functions such as solo, mute, record enable, monitor, and fader. You will also learn to edit tracks using quantize settings and take advantage of audio and MIDI loops. 

This course explores how to use effects plug-ins and mix your tracks using panning, EQ, and reverb to heighten the quality of the sound of your music. Within four weeks, you will be able to showcase your skills with a multi-track recording and mix that applies all that you learned in this online music production course. 

New Songwriting Techniques Certificate Program

New Songwriting Techniques Certificate Program

Since 1928, Interlochen has offered an immersive arts experience that fosters a sense of closeness discovered only through a deep, shared appreciation. Generations of artists and arts enthusiasts have experienced the special and intangible magic that transpires on Interlochen's beautiful campus, nestled between two pristine lakes and surrounded by quiet pines in northwest Michigan. 

From ideation to completion, discover effective tools for crafting emotionally impactful music.

Taught by by award-winning songwriter/producer Shane Adams, the Songwriting Techniques certificate program consists of three four-week courses designed for adults and teens. The program can be completed at a pace that works for you and offers a unique opportunity to delve deeper into your craft while showcasing your achievements with a credential from Interlochen—an impressive addition to your résumé, college application, or LinkedIn profile.  

For students under 18, the Songwriting Techniques certificate program is also an engaging way to earn high school credit. It’s ideal for students looking to challenge themselves beyond their school curriculum or to supplement their homeschool studies.

Songwriting Techniques Certificate Program

✺ Frequently asked questions ✺

  • Tuition is $299 for a single course.

    Certificate program (3 courses) is normally $897, but currently on sale for $799.

  • We use Steinberg’s Cubase in the course to demonstrate recording principles (mainly because it is available to both Mac and PC users. However, you are more than welcome to use your own DAW, like Logic, ProTools, Abelton, Garage Band, Reaper, etc.).

  • Each course is 4 weeks long.

  • An instrument is recommended, but not required.

  • Anyone interested in becoming a better songwriter!

  • Other than dividing teens and adults into there own sections, there is no age restriction.