Course summary

If you’re passionate about charting singles, and have a strong awareness of the commercial music scene, the MA Commercial Songwriting and Production programme will prepare you for a successful and sustainable career as a commercial songwriter in the 2020s. Whether you’re a songwriter, songwriting producer or creative artist, you’ll cover everything you need to know about creating the best commercial songs possible, and getting them to market in an ethical and innovative way. Creating and producing at least one song per week per module, you’ll put your creative songwriting process to the test, as you write to brief and receive critical feedback from ICMP’s expert team of highly experienced songwriters, producers and music business professionals. You’ll also learn how to analyse your own work, and that of your fellow MA Commercial Songwriting and Production students, as you immerse yourself in the craft, techniques and sonic worlds of both songwriting and production. Created with entrepreneurship firmly at its core, you’ll develop a strong understanding of how the modern music industry operates on this course, covering everything from marketing strategy, promotion and business skills, to A&R pitches, personal development plans and publishing. You’ll learn all the necessary steps to market yourself as a commercially minded writer–producer, as well as how to innovatively and ethically make sure your songs are heard by the largest number of people possible. During your intensive year with us, you’ll take part in collaborative production skills workshops, interactive music business seminars and a programme of advanced songcraft technique. You’ll also study the contexts in which songs are conceived and produced, and the platforms used to shared them with the world. Showcasing the perfect blend of creativity and technical production skills, you’ll learn to create songs using in-the-box (ITB) production across a selection of digital audio workstations (DAWs), including Ableton Live, Logic Pro and Pro Tools. Many of your classes will take place at the high-tech SSL and Audient studios on ICMP’s impressive Queen’s Park campus, where you’ll get to grips with industry-standard software, equipment and plugins. Across your MA studies, you’ll also be encouraged to connect and collaborate with talented students on your songwriting and production masters course, as well as those across other ICMP courses and disciplines. The year concludes with an assignment tailored to your personal and professional interests, where you’ll complete a large-scale body of creative work in the form of a commercial songwriting portfolio. Honing your songcraft and studio production skills, you’ll work with an expert commercial songwriting supervisor to develop an album, collection of co-writes or other song-based production which cements your unique songwriting and production identity. You’ll graduate as a highly capable songwriter and producer, with the drive, autonomy and production know-how to work successfully in the commercial songwriting industry, plus an impressive selection of creative output highlighting your skills and talent for all to see.