Song Academy, which organises the annual Young Songwriter competition, is offering workshop opportunities for 8- to 18-year-old apsiring songwriters during the coming school holidays. Participants can book either three hours of group workshopping with up to eight others or join small groups of four for the six-hour individual writing sessions.
In the group sessions, the entire group work together for three hours with Song Academy professionals to write an original song from scratch. There are beginner, intermediate and advanced groups with programmes tailored to suit each group’s abilities. They will learn about different song structures and genres, carry out entertaining exercises to improvise lyrics and melodies over different chord structures and find out how rhythm and arrangement works.
The individual sessions allow each participant in a group of four to write their own song across three days, two hours per day. Again, there are three levels of ability to choose from. The workshop parallels much of the group sessions’ exercises but includes one-to-one time with a Song Academy leaders.
Carried out online, participants will need to be able to access Zoom and have pens, paper and a musical instrument if they play one. Individual session participants will also need a device to use the Soundtrap online Digital Workstation. Sound Academy will provide access to Soundtrap after booking.
The Individual Songwriting Workshops cost £125 for six hours and run on 6 and 12 April. The Group Songwriting Workshops cost £35.50 and run on 7-9 April and 13-15 April.
After 12 years of helping young people find their voice through song, Song Academy has continued its work by going wholly online through the pandemic. Its founder and Chief Executive is Rowena Atkins, who came up with the idea after her eight-year-old daughter unexpectedly composed a song for her.
She established the platform with a team of young, professional performer songwriters, ‘…for young people to express themselves powerfully and communicate how they’re feeling by writing their own original songs.’
Further information
- For more details about the Easter workshops: https://www.songacademy.co.uk/
songwriting-workshops/ - For those who cannot make these dates, Song Academy will be running bespoke workshops for groups of four and for families. Email: contact@songacademy.co.uk for details
