The Craft of Songwriting

For anyone who dreams of writing a song, or writing better songs with Rachel Dawick

Friday March 23, 7.30pm – 9.30pm
and Saturday/Sunday, March 24/25, 10.00am - 5.00pm
Cost: $80.00/$75.00
Forfar Courts, 95 Forfar Street, St. Albans
Bookings essential, limited numbers
Use Booking form, ph 374 6873 (374 MUSE) or email us.

Are you a budding songwriter? Do you listen to your favourite music tracks and think "I want to write something as good as this one day?" 

Writing songs, like any form of creative writing, is about enthusiasm, openness, communication and hard work. This intensive course will take you through a range of techniques to help you write and improve your songwriting skills in a supportive environment. The key objective is for you to come away passionate about songwriting, equipped with the right tools to develop your craft and your own completed song. 

There is a great song waiting to be written in all of us and we just need to find a way of expressing this effectively so that our songs can ultimately reach others and feel as if they belong to them.

Topics covered include:

  • Approaches to writing a song
  • Song forms and structure
  • Lyric Writing
  • Melody and song arrangement
  • Finding Your Voice
  • Collaboration
  • Recording
  • The Music Industry – supports, networks and opportunities for songwriters.

The Tutor
Rachel DawickRachel Dawick has worked for many years as a performer and as a professional songwriter in the UK and NZ. She has taught in festivals, schools, community venues running workshops for young people through to adults, beginners to advanced. Since completing her Masters in Songwriting at Bath Spa University (UK) in 2010, Rachel has returned to NZ and has been touring and running workshops and with funding support from Creative NZ, is currently working on a project collecting stories of NZ women’s lives from 1800s to 1946. These stories are now being turned into songs with the release of the new double album in October 2012.