Disclosure: The songwriting books listed below are Amazon affiliate links.
UPDATE: Since the Coursera website will try to sell you on specialization certificates for this course, I’ve added some instructions on how to get the course for free, without paying for “Certificates” or “Specializations”.
I thought you’d like to know that Berklee College of Music’s online Songwriting course is now “on-demand”, so you can enroll whenever you want and finish the course at your own pace.
Berklee professor Pat Pattison teaches the course. Pattison’s also the author of Writing Better Lyrics and Songwriting without Boundaries; Pattison’s unusually literate and deliberate approach to the craft has made Writing Better Lyrics a classic.
The Songwriting course spans six weeks’ worth of lectures, quizzes, assignments, and peer review feedback. Deadlines are suggested, but not enforced, so you won’t lose points on a late assignment.
The course is hosted by Coursera and you can check this handy Coursera review if you want a little bit more information about the site. I personally took a course through Coursera last year called “Learning How to Learn”, taught by Dr. Barbara Oakley from the University of California. It was a good experience.
Coursera is an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
Update: How to Get the Course for Free
When you click the “Enroll” button on the course description page, Coursera will ask you to buy certificates for this course and some others all at the same time. These certificates are optional, and you can easily bypass the sales pitch to get the course free.
Check out this screen shot I took from the Coursera website. When you click “Enroll” on the course page, this appears:
Notice in the picture above that I’ve clicked the “This course only” option, which means I will not get a certificate for completing the course. That’s fine with me – I just want the knowledge itself, and Coursera lets you take the course for free if you select this option.
The certificates are only necessary if you want some form of proof that you finished the course. But really… why would you ever need to prove to somebody that you took a songwriting course?
Six weeks of structured training on songwriting from a teacher with solid credentials… that’s a rare deal. Paid courses from Berklee Online normally cost over $1,000 each, but this one’s free – so if you’ve got the time and the interest for this course, I hope you’ll take advantage of that.
Click here to check out the Songwriting course on Coursera.
Thank you so much for the tip!! I just enrolled and having fun again…