360° Songwriting & Production Academy
360° Songwriting & Production Academy | Lisbon
Instructors
Over 360 hours of tuition and uncapped studio time | €7999 + €300 registration fee | Payment plans
Ableton Live
- →In DAW terms, Ableton Live is a game-changer – its session view allows top-line songwriters to audition their music on-the-fly, making melody construction a fun task that’s creative and constructive rather than a slog. That’s why we begin with Ableton. We’re an official Ableton-certified training center – and we’re able to offer all Garnish learners a 40% discount!
Music Foundation & Composition
- →This part of the program has enough knowledge, tips and techniques to keep you fired up for ages! All of it is waiting to be applied to your own productions and backing tracks – whatever your chosen genre. Learn to make product that is fit for A&R meetings and music production houses. Learn to arrange vocals and sounds, to program bass-lines, to program strings and to sculpt organic sounds. Learn how to get the right sounds, and how to bring all of these elements together with basic synthesis to be ready for the master mix!
Hit Top-Line Songwriting
- →This is a supremely important part of the program that brings out the hit songwriter in you! It unveils the techniques and tips that YouTube and songwriting books either don’t know or aren’t prepared to give up! The power and importance of the top-line can and should never be under-estimated – learn why your songs might not be sounding like hits yet...
Sound Engineering & Producing Vocals
- →This module deals with how to master the art of capturing sound for recordings, including piano, bass, synths and guitars. The ‘producing vocals’ section of this module is primarily aimed at songwriters and producers, but will be helpful for vocalists to know, too. It covers how to coax, coach and encourage the best performances from artists and session singers. The more you know about vocal production and how to capture vocal performance, the better the lead vocal will sound, and the better, therefore, the song will sound – the vocal being absolutely integral to the song’s perception and success. Don’t worry, though, this doesn’t mean course participants will be forced to sing (unless they want to!) – it’s ok to simply listen and observe.
Logic Pro
- →The Logic Pro part of the program is going to take the avid student on a comprehensive tour of the EXS24, so that they get to grips with features like MIDI FX, Flexpitch and manipulating and chopping up loops and so on to make signature sounds of their own. Students also learn all about the fantastic in-built sounds and FX that this awesome DAW has to offer. Contemporary producers will often have a favorite digital audio workstation, and many plump for Logic for its ‘sound’- so we cover both this and Ableton to extract the very best of both!
Mixing & Mastering
- →No academy course is complete without learning how to construct the home studio environment to achieve its optimum potential – and that’s why, in this module, students are shown what professional engineers learn about acoustics and setting up a home studio space. That’s quickly followed up by an in-depth analysis of EQ, dynamic controllers, how to fill the frequency spectrum, mixing vocals and, critically, making all parts come together as one amazing whole. As the student continues to build their knowledge of mixing techniques, they are shown exactly how to employ it within the realms of electronic music.
Sound Design & Production
- →This module takes the student way beyond subtractive synthesis to explore granular, additive, frequency-modulated synthesis and wavetable, as well as subtractive synthesis! This module also covers more advanced beat-making techniques as the student’s sound continues to develop – this will include sampling, resampling and glitch techniques.
Music Business
- →Ah yes, the music business! That maze of possibility... this part of the program looks at the what was, what is and what may be - in an analysis of what makes this industry tick. We cover the roles of rights and societies, record companies, publishers, managers and lawyers. We look at synchronization (synchs) and licensing, how to sell your music, how to get it noticed and the pros and cons of door-stepping and other DIY tools you can employ to navigate the music business.
Music Producer
- →The role of the music producer, and all of the component parts that go into that role, are explored in this module. From pre-production to completion through to the delivery of the final version. This module looks at each stage of the journey, analyzing the skills and concepts that lead to a successful conclusion. In particular, we look at how to create emotion through both sound and performance and how to focus on achieving your production goals by defining its direction. Through understanding of these concepts and the arrangement of the ‘sonic field’ and the musical notes within it, our students get the best chance to make their project/s compelling and unique enough to extract the very best from them.
Field Trips
- →Students get the chance to for some hands-on experience recording a band when they visit a local pro studio. They may find that a notable client or two are working in the adjacent room! There’s also a pre-production studio which allows time and space for students to get stuck in, tinkering with their enviable range of vintage analog synths and processors to make some unique analog sounds for their projects.
Marketing & Branding
- →We conclude with a module that focuses on creating an effective Electronic Press Kit (EPK), how to brand and market a project, how to go about recruiting genuine social media followers and how to best exploit digital distribution opportunities.
Free Unlimited VIP Short Course Membership
- →Being part of the family really means something at Garnish, as all Academy learners will gain a free unlimited VIP membership for our shorter courses, worldwide. This means you can take as many of our 36-hour courses at any of our participating locations (London, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco) free of charge, with no cap on volume or time! Our offer is valid as long as there is availability at your chosen participating location.
More Free Stuff
- →Thanks to our exclusive licensing partnerships, we have assembled a range of specialized assets: synthesizers, effects, and samples for Garnish Academy students. These instruments and sounds allow us to teach producers, side by side, using the same sets of expanded resources. Our constantly evolving license-partners and content producers add thousands of dollars to the value of our Producer and Academy courses. Many of these products are yours to keep. Others are free to use while you learn and are then eligible for exclusive upgrades at a fraction of their regular price.
- →We have our very own boutique sample label Lazerdisk Sound . Garnish students get all of our packs (mostly written and produced by Garnish instructors) for free, and an exclusive pack just for Garnish students not sold on the site! It's recorded individual keys from Mark Ronson's Mellotron M4000D, which our label chief Zack Johnson meticulously recorded in Mark's studio in Hollywood. Thank you Zack and Mark!
Academic Year | Three 10-week terms | Wednesdays & Thursdays | 11.30a – 6.30p
Term 1: 2nd Weds. of September; Term 2: 2nd Weds. of January; Term 3: Last Weds. of April
Two Year Weekend | Six 10-week terms | Saturdays | 11a – 6p
Term 1 & 4: 2nd Sat. of September; Term 2 & 5: 2nd Sat. of January; Term 3 & 6: Last Sat. of April (x2)
Two Year Evenings | Six 10-week terms | Monday & Tuesday | 7p – 10p
Term 1 & 4: 3rd Mon. of September; Term 2 & 5: 2nd Mon. of January; Term 3 & 6: Last Mon. of April (x2)
Six Months (Two Ten-Week Terms) | Monday, Wednesday, and Friday | 11.30a – 6.30p
Term 1: January 28 | Term 2: April 22
Bespoke private tuition is also available for the whole program. Contact us for more information.
Free this year: optional Sound Design & Synthesis classes from our Electronic Music Academy
To be in the loop when we release more dates, sign up to our newsletter towards the top right of this page. We don't send many, you can easily unsubscribe, and we never share our data with anyone, ever.
Testimonials
From the Blog
Lisbon's course runs in small groups at our studio, taught by working producers, with live-online attendance for students elsewhere in Portugal, using our specialist music collaboration software, Muse. The city's fast-growing electronic scene makes it a good place to learn this. Discover qualities that distinguish us, here.
What our students say.
“Taking this course was probably one of the best decisions I have made in my career thus far”
Mandi Perkins
Instructors
Questions we hear a lot.
Yes. The 360° Songwriting & Production Academy runs in person at Garnish Lisbon and live online in the same sessions, using our music collaboration software, Muse - you join whichever suits you.
Our Songwriting & Production Academy: top commercial production and writing skills, taught to stand out in your chosen genre, supported by Ableton, Apple and Native Instruments.
The 360° Songwriting & Production Academy runs 360 hours. Ask admissions at Garnish Lisbon for the current dates and tuition.
Small - never more than eight people.
Ready to get started?
InquireWhat makes Garnish different?
Can You Learn How To Become a Songwriter? | Songwriting Help
Songwriting is a gift, but it is also a craft - and the craft half can be taught. What you can learn, and what you cannot.
Read →Free Hit Songwriting Tips From A No.1 Hit Selling Songwriter
In this video, our no. 1 hit selling songwriting instructor Alex Von Soos gives us a little taster of what you can expect on our Hit Songwriting course, jam packed full of songwriting tips from a top songwriter with record sales in the millions. Songwriting Tips | Become a Songwriter Music: Mountain
Read →Songwriting: How to Write Better Lyrics
by Chris Porter Communicate, connect and feedback. This is critical. A great (or at least, better!) lyric has something to say and knows how to say it. The subject matter is irrelevant if you get this critical step right. Run your ideas past trusted ears. If you’re getting a lot of blank looks, it’s
Read →The Advantages of Using Free Songwriting Software
There are hundreds of songwriters out there, but some of them are much better than the others. One of the main reasons for that is that successful songwriters are able to create radio-friendly songs. In the past, songwriters were relying solely on their senses and talent. Of course, these two things
Read →Major, minor and extended chords on the keyboard and piano
Music theory practice, part two: major, minor and extended chords on the keyboard, and how to voice them.
Read →Songwriting Guide For Beginners
It is absolutely okay if you’re not Johnny Cash or David Bowie, you can still write a song for that guitar tune in your head or vice versa. Songwriting is a skill indeed, however, with enough practice and right use of your imagination you can master this skill and begin writing masterpieces in no ti
Read →