Shane Adams

Robert Shane Adams was adopted by Dr. Robert N. Adams and Joyce Adams, and grew up in Henderson, Nevada — a desert city southeast of Las Vegas that was still figuring out what it wanted to be. His birth mother is Ruth Snarr. He went to Basic High School and graduated in 1985.

He wrote his first song at ten. It was terrible. He got better.

His first concert was Journey in Las Vegas. He had a balcony seat that happened to overlook the keyboard player, and something clicked. THAT'S what I want to do.

At eighteen he drove to a recording studio — the same car that would later show up in the artwork for his single "Somehow" — and laid down seven original piano-and-vocal tracks. He dubbed them onto cassette tapes, handwrote every label, and called the collection No Frills. He sold hundreds of copies out of his car. That session was the start of everything.

Through the late '80s and early '90s, he played "No Frills" concerts at the Las Vegas Library — solo piano and vocals, which caught enough attention that, according to the Henderson Home News, he "has already been offered a contract and is considering other options."

Shane showed up at Berklee College of Music around 1991 to study songwriting. Then he got frustrated with it and switched to arranging. Then he switched back to songwriting. He also picked up music business along the way. The path through Berklee wasn't a straight line, but straight lines are overrated.

While there, he became President of the Student Songwriters Association, made the Dean's List, and served on the Student Advisory Board to the College President.

Back home, the Henderson Home News ran four separate articles about him during his Berklee years — not bad for a kid from a town most people drove through on the way to Vegas:

Shane moved to Nashville and spent years in the publishing trenches — the part of the music business that nobody writes songs about. He worked at Mike O'Rear Publishing, Sea Gayle Music, One Music, and Criterion Music, doing the unglamorous work that keeps the industry running: pitching catalogs, negotiating contracts, processing copyrights, preparing royalty statements, and digging through Harry Fox audits.

He also did time at Pro Audio Solutions, building and configuring recording studio systems, DAWs, and PA setups — the kind of work where you learn what every cable does because you've plugged in every cable.

And before any of that — before Nashville, before Berklee — Shane was a bank teller (two company-wide customer service awards; helped open the first grocery store banking center in Nevada), a bicycle shop manager, a pizza restaurant manager, a carpet cleaner, and a solo piano/vocal dinner entertainer playing whatever the room needed to hear.

Berklee Online (2003–present): In 2003, Berklee launched its online school and Shane was one of the founding instructors. Twenty-two years later, he's still there — teaching lyric writing, songwriting, and music notation. Berklee Online has grown into the largest online music school in the world, serving 30,000+ students from over 140 countries. Shane was in the room when it started. His students call him "Uncle Shane." He created a teaching tool called "Uncle Shane's Famous Modezilla Chart," which his students won't stop talking about.

Berklee NYC: Associate Professor, mentoring master's degree candidates. Current courses include Songwriting Basics and Recording and Producing Music for Beginners.

Interlochen (2018–present): Founding instructor and course developer for Interlochen Online, where he built the Songwriting Techniques certificate program from scratch — three four-week courses for adults and teens. He also teaches Singer-Songwriter at Interlochen Arts Camp, the summer program for grades 6–12, consistently ranked the #1 arts program in America. Students rate his courses 4.7 out of 5.

Cambridge Creative Labs: Chaired the Music Department — faculty hiring, course development, tech strategy, the works.

This might be the thing that matters most. Shane co-developed and co-wrote both the Words & Music curriculum and the Songwriting 101 program for the Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The concept: professional songwriters visit classrooms and co-write real songs with students using lyrics the kids develop themselves through the curriculum. Shane is credited as "Songwriting Consultant" — first name in the acknowledgements.

He was a featured performer and writer for Words & Music Night for twelve years, performing the student-written songs live. He also sat on the museum's expansion advisory board and ran the Poetry in Motion outreach program, co-sponsored by the Nashville Arts Commission and the NCAA Women's Final Four.

A quarter of a million kids. In 2014, the Hall of Fame gave Shane the Top Ten Hitmaker Award for his contributions to the education center.

Shane has taught songwriting workshops and masterclasses in 40 US states, plus Mexico, Romania, Australia, and Canada. If there's a room with a piano and people who want to write songs, he'll probably show up eventually. Here's some of the documented trail:

Shane is listed on the clients page of Blackbird Studio — alphabetically between Serj Tankian and Shania Twain. Blackbird is one of Nashville's top recording facilities, founded by John McBride and Martina McBride, with a client list that includes Taylor Swift, Pearl Jam, and Bruce Springsteen. Shane records there through Artist Accelerator. String arrangements are always handled by Kristin Wilkinson.

He previously served as a featured composer for Fjor Films and wrote for Warner/Chappell Production Music. Both of those chapters have closed.

Production Credits:

Film Scores:

He also has an instrumental album called Even the Score — 23 original musical snippets from various film, TV, and podcast projects.

Shane's object writing exercises show up in Pat Pattison's Writing Better Lyrics on pages 10–11 and 13–14, attributed "—Shane Adams." That book is one of the most widely used songwriting textbooks on the planet. He also co-wrote the chapter "Breaking into Nashville" with Jonathan Feist for the Songwriter's Market 40th Annual Edition (Penguin Random House, 2016).

He writes regularly for iSing Magazine and has eight Quick Songwriting Tips videos on Berklee Online's YouTube channel — over 500,000 views and counting.

Mexico City, 2017: Shane lectured to master's students at Anáhuac University — often called "the Mexican Harvard" — on adaptability in the music industry. He also taught 60 private lessons and worked with 200+ group students at International Vocal Training (IVT). Eddie Robson, IVT's president, later wrote that Shane's visit was "one of the best things that has happened to our institution." Anáhuac gave him the Trajectory Award for "international leadership in the evolution of the music industry in the digital era."

Folk Alliance International, Montréal, 2019: Presented at the world's largest gathering of folk music industry professionals. February 13–17, at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

Bucharest, Romania, 2022: Gave a music seminar at Magazinul Muzica, the historic music store on Calea Victoriei that had been open since 1965. It's since closed.

Australia: Conducted seminars with an Australian school.

Canada: Prosody 101 presentation for Darcy D Music Group / VocalizeU. Darcy D has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame and shared Gold record success with Juno-winning artists Prism.

Shane turns up on a lot of microphones. Some of the documented ones:

Conference Keynotes & Presentations:

YouTube:

• Worldview: Optimistic Nihilist
• A Taurus (Born May 1)
• Favorite chord: D Major over G
• Favorite punctuation: !
• Gifted anagramarian
• Dedicated word nerd, loves deep etymology references
• Has a full shoulder-to-elbow sleeve tattoo based on a 17th century Guido Reni painting
• Nationally ranked Buffalo Wild Wings trivia champion
• Can solve a Rubik's cube in under 3 minutes
• Loves the Vienna opening in chess
• License plate IRTSNGS since 1989 — two Nevada plates, the rest Tennessee
• Got frustrated with songwriting at Berklee, switched to arranging, then found his way back to songwriting
• Favorite sushi: salmon nigiri
• Secretly prefers verse/refrains to verse/choruses
• Has a photo shaking James Taylor's hand at a Berklee graduation ceremony — for a degree he didn't finish
• First cassette was called No Frills. The hundreds of cases were all handwritten

It's very easy and self-serving to display such a glib and rosy account of my professional journey. The real story contains incredible mistakes, missteps, and bad decisions. I have mentored brilliantly talented individuals to great success, and have hurt and disappointed scores of others. To the former, I am incredibly grateful to be part of your journey. To the latter I apologize from the bottom of my heart. You deserved better.

~Shane