MA Songwriting

This module encourages creativity, exploration and purpose in the context of your songwriting process. You’ll examine your work and compare it against a range of approaches, as you identify new ways to define your songwriting. As well as continually writing songs both individually and collaboratively, you’ll undertake research and discussion to explore your understanding of creative intention and the creative process. Along the way, you’ll receive personalised creative coaching from ICMP’s expert tutors at workshops, seminars and tutorials, and you’ll explore detailed aspects of the songwriting process with guest lecturers. Regular peer and tutor feedback will help you evaluate your progress – and you’ll record these collaborative sessions in a reflective journal.  

Across this module, you’ll explore how music acts in service to your creative imagination and songwriting intention. Through the practice of creating ideas, redrafting them and deepening your critical reflection, you’ll develop your theoretical, technical and evaluative songcraft skills while addressing the concept of sonic identity in digital song creation. You’ll become confident at writing to track – particularly when using DAWs – as you take part in weekly workshops, seminar discussions, peer feedback sessions and analytical listening tasks. You’ll write at least a song a week, as you take an in-depth practical and theoretical look at the relationship between songcraft, melodic shape and harmonic language. 

In this module, you’ll explore a variety of processes, practices and techniques associated with songwriting, drawing from a number of different professional contexts. This exercise will see you develop a range of skills to inform the conceptual and design elements of your own creative practice. By expanding your songwriting in a range of new settings – potentially across several projects, like a bespoke indie artist release, ethnographic or historical research, or a study of therapeutic applications of songwriting – you’ll increase your innovative practice and improve your adaptability by using a wider range of creative approaches. From a practical perspective, you’ll explore grants and research funding applications, and will take part in an impressive extra-curricular programme of guest lectures and community networking opportunities. 

In this module, you’ll delve into the craft and discipline of lyric writing, as you develop a professional level of expertise in your thinking and practice, and detailed technical knowledge of lyrical construction. On top of song mapping, pyramiding, rhyme types and placement, you’ll explore a range of genres and write many songs to brief. In workshops, you’ll present your writing and reflect on how you’re applying the techniques and methods you’ve studied. In seminars, you’ll analyse key aspects of lyric writing and evaluate how they can be used to achieve distinctive styles and aesthetics in your work. 

In this module, you’ll have the unique opportunity to create an exceptional piece of songwriting repertoire, with guidance from a dedicated professional supervisor every step of your journey. Your creative body of work will typically take the form of a song cycle, artist album, collaborative songwriter project, mixed medium artistic project or similar. To begin, you’ll submit a proposal that will result in either a research question or an A&R creative statement to inform your practice as research. As you progress the project, you’ll research, write songs, collaborate and apply everything you’ve learned to date about songwriting. You’ll enhance your creative, academic and entrepreneurial skills as you project manage your creation, strategise and implement its delivery, and proudly share your masterpiece with an excited audience. We handpick supervisors from across the different areas of songwriting practice, to ensure you have the best fit for your work. 

Read more about this module here