Winter Term Starts January 11th!   Contact Us 1-866-BERKLEE (USA) or +1-617-747-2146 (INTL)
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Online Winter Term Starts January 11th



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Master Certificate

Songwriting

9 Courses (27 credits)

$10,755
Complete certificate tuition
(Plus Registration Fee $150)

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Berkleemusic’s Master Certificate in Songwriting can help you become an expert songwriter, teaching you to create more powerful lyrics, choruses, and melodies to build memorable songs and commercial hits. This extensive program arms you with the writing tools you’ll need to develop your ideas into complete, engaging, and effective songs and master the craft of songwriting.

You’ll start by delving deeply into melody and harmony in your first two courses—Songwriting Workshop: Melody and Songwriting Workshop: Harmony. You’ll learn how to expertly construct music along with lyrics to make unforgettable songs.

With that strong foundation, you’ll move on to study the way that hit writers work in Songwriting Workshop: Writing Hit Songs. You’ll learn the tricks and techniques used by the masters—and employ them to write your own potential chart-toppers.

Next, you’ll learn how to develop creative song ideas, overcome writer's block, and enhance the emotional intent of your lyrics in Lyric Writing: Tools and Strategies.

The program moves on with curriculum designed to help you create strong, focused songs that perfectly blend your lyrical ideas with powerful melodies in Lyric Writing: Writing Lyrics to Music.

You’ll continuing honing your craft in Lyric Writing: Writing From the Title, a course designed to make your writing process more efficient and your lyrics more effective. You’ll learn a time-tested approach used by many professionals: how to write a vivid title and then construct a polished, unified song around it.

The Songwriting Masters Certificate Program also allows you to enhance your songwriting skills in a number of different areas by offering three elective courses that cover theory, harmony, arranging, or writing, all indispensable skills for the accomplished songwriter.

Substitutions may be requested for electives. Please contact our Continuing Education Registrar at registrar@berkleemusic.com or call (617) 747-2146 to see if your request suits the overall academic requirements for your chosen program.

Required Courses

BMW-133 Songwriting Workshop: Harmony
Jimmy Kachulis (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Learn how harmony can help you to articulate the essential meaning of a song, and the best ways to adapt chords and progressions to suit your unique songwriting style and ideas.

BMW-131 Songwriting Workshop: Melody
Jimmy Kachulis (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Learn to construct strong, expressive melodies that your audiences will remember.

BMW-130a Songwriting Workshop: Writing Hit Songs
Jimmy Kachulis (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Move your listeners and express yourself more effectively by crafting your songs the way hit writers do.

BMW-120 Lyric Writing: Tools and Strategies
Pat Pattison (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Generate more and better ideas. Express them in compelling and original ways.

BMW-122 Lyric Writing: Writing Lyrics to Music
Pat Pattison (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Get the most out of your lyrics by learning how to combine them accurately and effectively with melody.

BMW-121 Lyric Writing: Writing From the Title
Pat Pattison (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Make your writing process more efficient and your lyrics more effective. Learn how to find a powerful and effective song title, and discover how to build lyrics, develop the rhythms of your song sections, create contrasting sections and ideas to re-color your chorus based on that title.

3 Elective Courses

Recommended Electives

Please contact our Continuing Education Registrar to request elective substitutions.

BMW-125 Commercial Songwriting Techniques
Andrea Stolpe (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Learn to write for commercial success by reproducing the time-tested characteristics of hit songs while maintaining your own unique voice.

BMW-101a Music Notation Using Finale
Jonathan Feist (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Create great-looking music quickly and easily with the powerful Finale music notation software, and learn techniques to maximize speed, control, and accuracy.

BMW-103 Music Notation Using Sibelius
Tom Rudolph (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Learn to create lead sheets, choral and instrumental scores, drum maps and guitar notation, and explore many other ways to use Sibelius for your own personal and professional needs.

BMB-170 Music Publishing 101
Eric Beall (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Create and operate your own publishing company, and learn how to effectively promote and place your songs into income-generating opportunities.

BME-101 Music Theory 101
Paul Schmeling (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Get the musical foundation you need to take your skills to a higher level. Learn to read, write, really listen…and put theory into practice every day!

BME-110 Getting Inside Harmony 1
Michael Rendish (12 weeks, 3 credits)
Use harmony creatively in your playing and writing. Learn to hear and modify chord progressions, improvise effectively from chord to chord and deepen your understanding of music's inner workings.