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Songwriting & Production Industry Diploma

Learn how to produce and write the songs you hear in the charts every day in classes of no more than eight people on our Songwriting & Music Production Industry Diploma. Styles covered are Commercial Dance, Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Urban, and out-and-out Pop! Have the knowledge and skills from many styles of music in your locker to stand out from the crowd in your genre. You will benefit by learning professional techniques from experienced songwriters, producers, and engineers including Grammy-winners. We are proud to list all of them, from all of our programs on our Instructors page.  Be motivated and inspired by your instructors, classmates at the world’s boutique music production school in the creative hub that is London Fields, Hackney.

Garnish was the first music production school in the world to offer the Music Production Grades. All Diploma students can opt in to take a Grade 6, 7, or 8 examination. They are a fun way to recap information, add a healthy sprinkling of academia to our program, and do still carry some UCAS points. Unlike FE and HE accredited programs, Garnish has the freedom to make teaching students to produce the music they love the priority, not be bogged down with irrelevant academic modules. What’s more, music production degrees are not important to employers in the music industry!

With homework and 360 hours of class time, with strategically placed mentoring sessions, you will write, produce, engineer, mix, master, and learn how to release and promote your very own EP, as well as potentially gaining your Garnish Industry Master Diploma Certificate, RSL Grade Award, and Logic Pro X Certification.

Logic Pro X

By the end of this module, you’ll be zipping around Logic Pro like a… pro! You’ll get to grips with advanced features like Flexpitch, MIDI FX, chopping up loops and making them your own in the EXS24, alongside learning all about all the fabulous built-in sounds and FX now included in this fully comprehensive digital audio workstation. Many contemporary producers prefer Logic for the ‘sound’, and you can use both Ableton and Logic together so you get the best of both worlds. Master Diploma learners can opt to take the official Apple exam and become certified in Logic Pro X.

Music Foundation & Composition

Full of contemporary record production tips and techniques and knowledge you need to put together your own commercial (pop, rock, urban, singer/songwriter and commercial dance) backing track fit for A&R meetings and production music houses. From programming bass-lines, strings, basic synthesis, sculpting organic sounds, vocal & song arranging, getting the right sounds, and putting it all together to make your track sound as one and ready for a master mix.

Hit Top-Line Songwriting

Have you ever wondered why the songs that you write are okay but don’t sound like hits? Have you read songwriting books and watched tutorials on Youtube without them actually making any difference? This top-line songwriting module tells you what other sources either don’t know or don’t want to give away-the concepts shared here are designed to finally bring the hit songwriter out in you!

Ableton Live

Ableton Live‘s session view makes it revolutionary music production software. Top-line songwriters can audition all combinations of music they’ve composed on-the-fly, making writing melodies fun, creative and more productive. This is why we start you off on Ableton. We are an official Ableton certified training center, and all GMP learners qualify for a 40% discount.

Sound Engineering & Producing Vocals

In our Sound Engineering module you will master the art of recording common instruments including guitar, bass, piano and synths. Yes, there is an art to recording synths! The vocal production section is not particularly aimed at singers, but at songwriters and producers. Because even if we don’t sing ourselves, we still need to be able to encourage, coach and produce artists and session vocalists. The more we know about singing, vocal production and recording vocals, the better the main part of our song-the lead vocal-is going to sound!  Of course even though we cover vocal technique, actual singing in class is not mandatory, it is ok to just listen!

Mixing & Mastering

First, we step out of what you would learn as a professional engineer by covering acoustics and how to set up your home studio environment correctly. Then it’s on to the fun stuff:  in-depth EQ, filling the frequency spectrum, dynamic controllers, mixing vocals, how to make just a few elements sound huge, and making all your parts sound as one exploring all the new amazing plugins in the latest Native Instruments Komplete bundle.  As you learn these mixing techniques, you will be shown how they apply within electronic music.

Sound Design & Production

Many pro music producers do not get past subtractive synthesis in their entire career, but you will cover subtractive, wavetable, granular, additive and frequency modulated synthesis all using Logic Pro X’s built in arsenal of synths. They’ll also be sampling, resampling, glitch, and more advanced beat-making techniques in this section as you develop your sound.

Music Business

Introduction-the music business yesterday, today, and the future, rights & societies, lawyers & managers, record companies and publishers. Synchronisation & licensing, D.I.Y. Tools, selling your music, how to get noticed and knocking on doors.

Music Producer

This module explores the roles of the music producer and brings together the many individual components, skills and concepts from all of the stages, from pre-production to completion and delivery of the final version. We focus on concepts such as creating emotion through sound and performance, visualising and defining the direction of the production and achieving your production goal. By understanding the essential concepts of music production, the arrangement of both musical notes and the ‘sonic field’. You learn how to make your band or solo artist (this could be yourself) both unique and compelling to get the very best out of your act.

Field Trips

We take you to a fully commercial recording studio in London, and The Briggs Warehouse, where you will get to play and program in a room full of old analogue synths and toys to find some real analogue sounds for your tracks. Recent artists in our old studio include Soul Clap, Robert Owens and Rui da Silva.

Free Unlimited Short Course Membership!

All Academy learners at Garnish will gain a free unlimited membership for our shorter courses, worldwide. This means you can take as many 36-hour courses at any of our participating locations (London, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco) free of charge, with no cap on volume or time! Our offer is valid as long as there is availability at your chosen participating school.

£4499 | Payment plans & info

Six Months | Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday Continuous | 10 – 2

Start: Thursday April 25th | End: Thursday October 3rd

One Year | Three 10-week terms | Tuesday and Thursday | 11 – 6

Start: 1st Tuesday of October | Term 2: Second Tuesday of January | Term 3: Last Tuesday of April

Evenings | Six 10-week terms | Monday and Wednesday | 7 – 10

Start & Term 4: Third week of September | Term 2 & 5: Second week of January | Term 3 & 6: Last week of April (x 2)

Two Year Weekend | Six 10-week terms | Saturdays | 11 – 6

Start: 2nd Sat. of September | Term 2: 2nd Sat. of January | Term 3: Last Sat. of April (x2)

Six Months | Two 10-week terms | Monday, Wednesday & Friday | 11 – 6

Start: September 30th | Term 2: January 6th

Private tuition also available for the whole academy program. Contact us for more information.

Free this year: optional Sound Design classes and mentoring from our Electronic Music Diploma

Laptops: Many learners these days prefer to use their own laptops on our courses for things like getting help customising their set-up, and they have their project exactly as they left it in class to work on at home. So we made the price more affordable, but added a £250 supplement for learners who wish to hire an iMac loaded with software. Please ensure you book an iMac when you book your course if you need one. Controller keyboards, headphones, and audio interfaces are always provided for everyone.

Payment: If you’re accepted, you can secure your spot by paying a non-refundable registration fee of £500. For all course fee payments with no additional charges, we accept bank transfers, cheques or cash deposited into any Metro Bank branch to be paid by the beginning of your course. A 10% fee will apply if you wish to pay in installments throughout your course, and add 3% for all card payments.

If you have any questions before registering, do get in touch.

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Testimonials

The course was amazing. It’s the education I should have had at school. I have learnt so many new ways of writing and analysing. It was a fun course to do and I couldn’t believe that the lessons were all day as the time just flew by each time. I’ve found a new love for listening to Radio 1. It was thoroughly enjoyable and the teachers just have so much knowledge they're happy to share with people. If you only ever do one thing in your life, make sure it’s this course.

Mike Wheeler

I know your teaching methods are ‘future proof’ and you have some awesome teachers who can express themselves very precisely, perfect balance between theory and practice. It was an overall perfect impression and I wish you and your school all the best.

Stefan Splinter

Fantastic facilities and expert tuition from world-class songwriters, engineers, and producers!

Mark Tomlinson

Good sized classes, easy to interact, well prepared and methodical learning

Yerosha Windrich

The tutors are very knowledgable and respond well when asked questions. This made it easy to understand the fundamentals and therefore made it simple to put them into practice!

Matthew Khabbaz

The course was absolutely brilliant; I'm basically walking around with an I'm-so-enlightened-the-world-better-watch-out attitude now because...well, I am!

Viv May

I just wanted to let you know that I got my first release as a songwriter here in Korea and to say thanks! All those principles we learnt on the course are definitely coming in handy-it's crazy, I had no idea I'd end up doing songwriting as a career!

Su Jung Pae

The course was brilliant, the small class size ensured we received individual attention. Alex was very knowledgeable, encouraging and reassuring, so the nerves I had before the course disappeared. The content we covered was amazing, I wouldn’t have thought of the stuff we covered in a million years!

Monica Holcombe

Great content, really useful techniques that I think have saved me years of frustration on trying to figure out why my songs were “just not there”. Love the tools you gave us to provide contrast and build, and then release into the chorus. Learnt a lot about what makes a hit commercial song and what I can do to make my songs better

Allan Cuevas

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