Free Music Courses at Berklee

[T.C. Elliott]

I did all of the first week stuff for the songwriting class with Pat Pattison. I like Pat, but I can tell from other friends' remarks that he isn't for everyone. I even did the first week assignment, which was a little harder to find. But it was HARD not starting the lyric already for a song I'm thinking about. I'm use to taking an hour and writing a song.

The music production class... I've done half the videos and the quizes that go with them. This one is less intuitive. I don't already know the exact definitions of amplitude, for instance. Or which axis time is on the Oscilloscope vs the Spectrogram. But I'm learning. I think it has the potential to teach me the most, but it's definitely course work as opposed to the songwriting class which is more like reading up on a hobby.

[Flash Harry]

Started, continuing.

Nothing new yet.

[Hilary]

I've started the music production one (yes really!) - I now know that a slinky moves from side to side and forwards and backwards - and I just thought it went down the stairs!

[T.C. Elliott]

I think I'm learning more from the Music production class, but songwriting just caught up with Lesson 2. I know the songwriting class is geared toward commercial songwriting, but the tools Pat is giving us are gonna be pretty useful, I think.

[maxit]

needless to say, songwriting! see you there, and thanks 64 for precious info, you're great!!

[dasilvasings]

I'm doing the songwriting course, and wow! So far, everything is new!

I'm in one those moments that I think: "Can you believe we can actually "do" our own songs instead of just buying already packed songs in the local supermarket?!?! Wow!"

Seriously, Pat is very expressive and I am very enthusiastic with the course!

[maxit]

yea, I'm having fun too, Pat is a nice teacher LOL

[Blooby]

The time is killing me.  I may have to drop out as I have too much going on with work.  We'll see after the next couple days. 

Sad to say.

Blooby

[cuthbert]

Unfortunately, I think I'll be bailing as well. Work is taking up too much of my time right now.

[T.C. Elliott]

I hope ya'll can find the time to do it (even if it's late) as I think it's helpful. But I've been back and forth in that work is taking up all my time department the past four months or so.

The music production course is teaching me... actually it's just telling me to do what I've needed to do all along. This week (week two) was all about setting up a DAW and learning shortcuts. I still record via the BR900 and import, but the editing I always do with a mouse (the hard way) just got easier by spending an hour today looking through the action list and writing down the short cuts I would use the most. If I spend just a few minutes a week on that action list learning the DAW I'll be much better at mixing in no time. Yes, I could have done this in the past two years very easily. Yes, I should have. But not until this class have I actually done it.

The songwriting class is enlightening. Simple concepts that each will make a small improvement but added together could make a big difference in my songwriting.

And on top of all that, I've told myself I'm gonna start doing open mics now that my band is on hiatus. And I've a cold so learning my own songs is painful...literally. I'm hacking up a lung after a verse and part of a chorus.