Professor Jimmy Kachulis’ Revamped Songwriting Course Focuses on The Hits

Great songwriters aren’t born, they’re made. And songwriting professor Jimmy Kachulis has been shaping students for years at Berklee College of Music in Boston and, more recently, with Berkleemusic, the college’s award-winning online continuing education division. His newly redesigned online course, Songwriting Workshop: Writing Hit Songs, brings his expertise in writing commercial hits to students around the world.

Kachulis is an acclaimed composer, arranger, and conductor who has worked with Martha Reeves and Eric Gale in addition to having music featured on The Sopranos and other Emmy Award winning television series. His accomplishments as an instructor include multiple GRAMMY nominations for former students’ works. At Berklee, he’s a well-respected mainstay in the Songwriting Department, and with Berkleemusic, he’s known for his online Songwriter’s Workshop courses on Harmony and Melody.

Now he’s taking things to the next level in the revamped Songwriting Workshop: Writing Hit Songs, a 12-week online course that examines the elements of memorable songs. The course covers all the major song forms—including verse chorus, verse prechorus chorus, verse refrain, a combination form, and three different types of bridges—and gives students the same time-tested tools that best-selling songwriters have employed for years to craft some of the biggest hits ever.

“The emphasis is on how to use music to bring out the emotion of the lyric story,” says Kachulis of his course. “You’ll learn how to choose the most effective form for every song you write—whether you want them listening to you, or singing along with you.”

Kachulis has analyzed thousands of hits–from chart-topping one-hit wonders to groundbreaking classics, from the 50s to today–and identified the key characteristics of what structures and patterns work–and why. In his course, Kachulis uses over 200 audio samples of hit tunes and more than 50 video clips to teach students the characteristics that repeatedly make great hits, across many genres, eras, and trends.

“I want you to see and hear how easy it is to use the tools to create memorable songs that your audience will respond to,” he says.

What this is not, however, is a course strictly for musicians aiming for mainstream commercial success. It’s designed not only for those seeking to write bona-fide hits, but also singer/songwriters, choir directors, and musicians outside the mainstream who want to hone their songwriting skills. “After you complete this course you’ll be able to create any kind of song in any kind of genre,” Kachulis notes.

With the newly revamped Songwriting Workshop: Writing Hit Songs, Berkleemusic’s budding songwriters will continue to emerge with skills and experiences unmatched among their peers. Songwriting student Shaun Royer, who was recently asked to score a new television series on The CW, says of the course, “It has given me the courage to really put myself out as a songwriter.”