Diploma in Songwriting and Music Production (teach out by Feb 2025)

This module deals with the knowledge and skills needed for melody writing in the context of songwriting for popular music markets. You will learn song forms of popular music genres of different markets, primary(motif), secondary(musical form) and tertiary(song structure) components of songs, as well as approaches in creative writing that will culminate in producing what is termed a hit song.

This module develops the quintessential skills of listening to music and analysing it from a technical perspective. This course comprises of 2 segments: 1) from a musician’s perspective, you will learn how to listen to rhythm, time-signature, pitch and the relationship between note intervals, 2) from an engineer’s perspective you will learn how to listen to frequencies and how it affects different instruments (vocals, guitar, bass drums). At the end of the module, you will be able to analyse audio materials, identify unique musical ideas and integrate it into your repertoire.

This module introduces you to different approaches towards lyrics writing, as well as techniques of lyrics writing as part of the songwriting process. You will appreciate how lyrics are written differently for different contexts. You will learn how to make use of concepts and various available tools for creative writing. You will also be taught how to systematically and strategically approach the writing process for effective storytelling.

This module equips you with the essential skills to effectively operate professional audio equipment. You will learn how microphones, microphone preamplifiers, and outboard gear operate; safe operating procedures; microphone characteristics, placement and essential studio signal flow to achieve the highest quality of audio production in a professional studio environment. You will apply the knowledge learned in this module to create professional-sounding audio recordings for song productions.

This module aims to prepare students to build a sustainable career within the music industry by providing them with a strong fundamental understanding and overview of the music business. This module will introduce: 1) Various key players in the music industry which includes publishing houses, labels, management companies, publicists, etc. 2) Singapore copyright laws and employment rights for a freelancer. 3) Impart practical skills like creating a feasible online portfolio, building a network, understanding target audiences, social media management and more.

This module introduces you to concepts in creative thinking, in a general sense not necessarily and specifically only targeted directly at any aspects of the songwriting process per se. The lessons for this module are filled with class activities that inform, inspire and allow you to explore and question what creativity is, how it may be evoked, and how it can be guided to fruition. Understanding creative thinking in a general sense would then allow you to translate this skill to different aspects of the songwriting processes as you move on to these aspects in your practices when you encounter the various other modules in this course, and indeed also as you develop into professional songwriting practitioners.

This module covers the knowledge, techniques and skills needed for composing music (songs, jingles, film scoring, mood music, library music etc.) for moving images in audio post-production, whether it is for full feature films, movie trailers, TV commercials, online commercials, corporate videos, drama series, documentaries, animations, games or production music libraries. The module will also introduce the basics in creative management and industry practices in audio post-production.

This module deals with the knowledge and skills needed for music arrangement in the context of songwriting for popular music markets. You will learn music arrangement ranging from organic to electronic music genres, as well as how music arrangement style differs among different markets. You will experiment with both audio and MIDI recordings, as well as the use of loops and samples in your music arrangement.

This module equips you with skills in preparing a song for the post-production stage and it for online publishing and distribution. Topics include mixing concepts; tools used for tone shaping, audio levelling, and time-space localisation. You will explore traditional mixing workflow and modern mixing workflow; being able to describe the differences in both processes and determine the best pathway for a song.

The module equips you with the essential skills to analyse music and dissect the elements which make them up. You will be exposed to various genres of music spanning across eras and participate in the in-class discussion as well as individual research and presentation on these genres.

This module aims to build upon the concepts taught in PS010. Students will explore various hands-on approaches to mixing songs in various genres; the approaches in dealing with a song genre they are not familiar with and how best to work out a plan to tackle issues in a song mix. Students will move on to work on much more complicated song mixes involving multiple layers of audio elements. Students will learn how to manage large sessions; version changes and how to deliver the final mixdown for a commercial song release. Students will also explore the use of hardware equipment as part of a hybrid studio environment. Finally, students will explore advanced mastering concepts to handle songs for commercial releases in the capacity of a mastering engineer.

This module equips you with essential knowledge of managing professional live sound equipment used in live performances. You will be taught principles of the live sound environment and various methods to set up, tune and run a live show.

This module aims to equip students with the necessary knowledge to produce lead and backing vocals for a song production. Through practical lessons, you will be exposed to creative directions of a song and be presented with case studies of various published songs and analyse the vocal production techniques used in those songs and design your own vocal parts.

This lesson aims to equip students with working knowledge on music theory. Students will be equipped to understand the fundamentals of western music theory like major and minor scales, interval theory and more. Students will also learn basic keyboard skills in this module to equip them with a foundation to play an instrument.

Note: This module will be available in Term 1, 2022.

As part of the curriculum, you are required to undertake a project supervised by the facilitators. The Final Year Project Committee of our school will be entrusted to oversee the coordination of all final year projects. The Committee has prepared this set of guidelines so that you are aware of the various project requirements in terms of project schedule, project report, and presentation.

This programme is a non-graded programme which pairs up trainees with current industry professionals to develop your industrial awareness. Through constant 1 to 1 with your mentors, you will be able to obtain first-hand information on how the music industry is changing and thus better hone skills which are suitable to meet the upcoming challenges. Through your interaction with them, the mentors will also provide feedback to improve your craft, enabling you to enter the industry as industry-ready musicians capable of producing world-standard hits.