Andrew Cote, 2024 M.E. Grammy Quarterfinalist (Merrimack College, North Andover, MA) Classroom Tip

[Music] hi my name is Andrew Cody from Merrimack College and I would like to share with you how you in one semester could take 20 to 30 students and write over 150 new songs writing as you know is a very difficult subject to teach a class of 20 to 30 students who all really have different levels of experience and many of which have never met each other before so in order to make this work the first thing I prioritize is trying to create a welcoming and fun learning environment try my absolute best to take the pressure off of writing and creating new songs really because if students aren't comfortable sharing around one another not only will they avoid sharing their honest work but they will also resist collaborating with one another next I try to focus on teaching super isolated skills within songwriting first class might be focused on you know just writing a Melody another class could be on chord progressions and Harmony and then finally and surely we slowly try to creep our way into doing simple exercises and writing lyrics One technique from songwriting class that has been extremely helpful to me came from something I think he called the bubble where you basically write a word or a theme and idea and you Branch out about other related things so if my word was happy I'd write things around the circle that make me happy and it really helps you to get specific about it because in songwriting if you're trying to touch more people you have to touch like in within yourself first to continue taking the pressure off of creating new music I then give the class group exercises where they are tasked with writing songs following various prompts and activities one of my favorites is in a class I will give students tasks of creating three different characters like they're creating you know characters for a movie or television show students get really really specific about details like what color the character's eyes are or whether they prefer mint chocolate chip or cherry vanilla ice cream then what I have them do is pick two of those characters and try and write a song about how these characters first meet one experience from songwriting class that was memorable to me was when we took lyrics from chat GPT and we made them try to sound human which was a really big challenge because AI doesn't understand emotions and it was just so cool to try to put the words in a way that made it sound real so with all these activities I gradually transitioned from tightly controlled small exercises in songwriting to very loose in larger exercises ultimately the goal of these assignments is to really build the confidence in the students by the end of the semester the students are to prioritize completing their songs not perfecting them many of my students have never written a song before and I stress to them the importance of hitting their first double bar line my hope is that my students walk away from my class encouraged and not to let their first song in my class be their last