
Explore sense-based language that turns emotion into vivid inner body sensations and movement, inviting listeners into the scene with specific details and metaphors.
perform a 10-minute, non-editing continuous prose exercise with a prompt to evoke sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and movement, strengthening sensory language for songwriting over at least two weeks.
Watch a live demonstration of sense writing for songwriting: generate a random prompt, write for 10 minutes using all seven senses, and translate memory into vivid scenes—handwritten or on computer.
Identify and blend visual sense, touch sense, sound sense, smell sense, taste sense, and inside body sense to craft immersive, emotionally charged song lyrics that pull listeners into your world.
Discover practical sense writing techniques to fuel your songs. Use daily ten minute sense writing to generate ideas, extract gold nuggets, map song sections, and warm up creativity.
Explore how sense-based language and multisensory imagery bring lyrics to life in Amanda Palmer's bed song and Lauv's the other. Compare detailed vs dialed-back imagery for immersion in case studies.
Master showing over telling by using concise imagery and sensory language; choose moments that create clarity, illustrated by tracksuits, red wine, and movies for two.
Practice sense writing for 10 minutes daily over two weeks, using object, place, and event prompts to spark concrete moments. Build the habit of transforming prompts into vivid song ideas.
Explore how chord functions create chorus contrast using diatonic home and away chords within a key, revealing how the tonic anchors the song's central idea.
Avoid the tonic in verse with F, G, and A minor to create contrast; start the chorus on the tonic, as in I need you now by Lady A.
Discover how to use the tonic to create contrast by shifting its position in verse and chorus: avoid starting in verse, start in chorus first position for impact.
Place the tonic in the verse and omit it from the chorus to create contrast, showing how chord choices shape lyric meaning, as in Devils and Dust.
Apply three chord-variation approaches to your lyrics, testing tonic placement in verse and chorus to reveal contrast and discover which version best expresses the song’s emotional story.
Explore how rhyme schemes create momentum by breaking cliches and expanding beyond couplets, learning to shape longer arcs of tension and control the effect of your lyrics.
Apply rhyme scheme notation to analyze end-line rhymes, mark unrhymed lines with x, and track a, b, and imperfect or slant rhymes in anti-hero lyrics.
Explore three alternative rhyme schemes, focusing on the aaab cccb pattern, end line rhymes, and a longer eight line arc with danglers, demonstrated with examples and an original song.
Explore how the abba rhyme scheme (a, b, b, a) creates instability and yearning in lyrics, using Sweet Baby James as a case study.
Explore last line x, a rhyme scheme that builds momentum with three rhymes and then breaks with an unrhymed final line to create anticipation, irony, and an open, unresolved ending.
Analyze reference songs to map song form, including verses, pre choruses, choruses, bridges, intros, and outros interludes, using blue printing to gain deliberate control and craft new song forms.
Explore how this lecture analyzes 'Way with Words' through its intro, verse, chorus, and half-time bridge, highlighting repetition, extension, and textures.
Analyze songwriting decisions through Another Map, focusing on five-bar verses, unstable sections, and bridges that create momentum. Learn how intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, interlude, and bridge shape meaning.
Use blueprinting to analyze song form, focusing on traditional sections, choruses, pre-choruses, and bridges across four four and other time signatures to craft engaging, well-structured songs with pdf resources.
Explore how phrasing the hook with different melodic timing—on beat one, before beat one, or after beat one—creates movement and emphasis in your lyrics.
Demonstrate three rhythmic variations of a lyric line—on beat one, before, or after the downbeat—emphasizing the key word with gravitas, using Firework as a case study.
Demonstrates how moving a lyrical phrase through three timing options—on the downbeat, before the downbeat, and after the downbeat—changes emphasis, mood, and meaning, using bluesy phrasing and spotlighting different words.
Experiment with lyric placement around the downbeat to reveal how uncertainty and emphasis shift when the line starts before, on, or after the beat.
Practice crafting a song’s hook by choosing a lyric line, aligning key words with the downbeat, and experimenting with phrasing to convey emotion, recognizing the melody as the lyrics’ vehicle.
Concise, digestible, and radically practical!
Like you, we love learning new things and acquiring new skills to get us closer to our vision for our music — but we don’t love long-winded courses, padded out with information that we will probably never need or use. Those courses can be overwhelming, and end up half-finished, and make us feel worse than when we started.
This course is a powerful distillation of our collective 40 years of songwriting and teaching experience at some of the best colleges and universities in the world - the 5 most powerful and practical exercises to help you transform your songwriting—immediately.
These 5 exercises will give you the tools, techniques, and processes that will help you turn your ideas into powerful musical storytelling - songs that move people to tears, laughter, and love.
Learning these exercises changed our lives - and has led to fulfilling (and rewarding!) careers as songwriters.
We’re thrilled to share with you the 5 most powerful songwriting exercise to transform your songwriting. They changed our lives—we’re sure they’ll change yours too.
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KIND WORDS FROM UDEMY STUDENTS:
Amazing course! Keppie and Benny present this info really well and I found the content extremely helpful for my own song writing journey. I want more!!
—Jasmine
This is a remarkable course. It's short and efficient, but never feels rushed, and in its short span Keppie and Benny show two completely different methods for writing a song, start to finish, with plenty of detail and illustrations, and step-by-step instructions for what you should do as you go along. Incredibly helpful and illuminating!
—Gillian B.
Fantastic course :) I found your YouTube channel first and I just really like the way you structure your tutorials, it's basically a conversation, easy to follow with lots of practical tips. I'm a beginner, but I think that you could also get a lot out of this as a more advanced songwriter.
—Xenia Thiem
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In this course, we show you:
Exercises for generating ideas—and “endless idea generation tool”
A writing exercise to draw on to take an idea and develop a full lyric out of it
How to write a bangin’ chorus (using a secret, but super simple, chord technique!)
How to write lyrics like a pro, by avoiding rhyme cliches - we show you 3 different rhyme schemes that will make your lyrics stand out from the crowd
An exercise for using great songs as a blueprint for your own songwriting - giving your song structure, and making sure you can finish your song every time
A melody exercise that places your most important ideas in neon lights - experimenting with melodic placement so that your melodies and lyrics are in perfect sync with each other
Tips on how pro songwriters think about melodic phrasing to create dramatic contrast, sonic spotlighting, and an emotional journey.
Each exercise is radically practical, and immediately actionable.
At each step, we:
Guide you through step by step
Give you real-life examples of the exercise in action
Show you how a song idea is transformed by applying these techniques
Give you well-known song examples to show how this exercise is evident in gold-star songwriting.
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Keppie and Benny have delved into the inmost workings of songwriting. How To Write Songs expertly outlines the essential tools, structural ideas, use of harmonic components and lyrical development that are sure to inspire and educate even the most experienced songwriters. Highly recommend to any and all songwriters.
—Dylan Lachmund
If you are a songwriter looking to benefit from the knowledge of some seasoned songwriters, this is for you. Whether you are a beginner or someone who has been at it for a while, you should take both of Keppie and Ben’s Udemy courses so you can take your songwriting to the next level. Do yourself a favor, and find some inspiration for your next great song(s)!
—Steven Frazier
Keppie and Benny work so well together to deliver a thoroughly engaging step by step process to writing songs. They are clearly both wonderful musicians, as well as great educators, and the way they bounce off each other works so well. I've really enjoyed the process and will enjoy going back over the content as I keep working on writing songs. Thanks so much Keppie and Benny, love your work!!
—Justin Davies
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Your Teachers - Industry Experts
Keppie and Benny are working professional songwriters, and both teach contemporary songwriting in some of the world’s most renowned colleges and universities. They are also the founders of the popular ‘How to Write Songs’ YouTube Channel, with a hell-bent mission to help people become better songwriters.
Keppie has taught songwriting at the Berklee College of Music, for Berklee Online, the Australian College of the Arts, the Open Academy at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, as well as at the Songwriting School of Los Angeles. Ben has taught for the JMC Academy and the Australian Institute of Music.
As working songwriters, Keppie has written and co-written songs that have had over 10 million streams in the past 2 years with bands and artists as diverse as ARIA-nominated Twelve Foot Ninja (heavy metal) and Universal Music songwriter Skye. Keppie’s songs appear in major network television shows, and most recently, Keppie was commissioned by Penguin Random House to write one of the first full albums of original work to appear in a major audiobook release (Mothertongues, 2022).
Keppie’s “voice is beautiful, just gorgeous. She’s like a contemporary female Nick Drake…and her guitar playing is so beautiful, so raw…” —John Mayer
“Coutts’ songs marry soul and folk so gorgeously, you’ll cheer when they get stuck on endless repeat on the jukebox in your brain.” —The Boston Globe
Ben Romalis has composed music for large companies such as Adobe and Cathay Pacific, and also composes music for games, televisions and advertising. As a songwriter, he is a founding member of the internationally touring alt-country band, The Green Mohair Suits, which has released 4 studio albums to date. Ben is the founder and head producer at Silamor Studios, a boutique studio specializing in video and audio production.
“Green Mohair Suits make music for pleasure. Our pleasure. If you don’t find yourself smiling, tapping or joining in on one of those harmonies, you’re leading a very sad life.” —Sydney Morning Herald
Ben lectures across a range of subjects including Songwriting, Production and Composition for Screen. He has vast experience designing and delivering workshops on creativity and innovation, as well as mentoring and coaching other industry professionals to help them realise their potential.