Learn how to produce and write the songs you hear in the charts every day in classes of no more than seven people on our Songwriting & Music Production Comprehensive Academy Program. Styles covered are Commercial Dance, Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Urban, and out & 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 Grades System for music production, and all Academy students are entered for a Grade 6, 7, or 8 examination at the end of their program. More on music production grades here.
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.
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!
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!
Logic Pro
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.
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’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.
Over 432 hours of tuition and uncapped studio time | $7999 + $300 registration fee | Payment plans
Academic Year | Three 10-week terms | Tuesdays & Thursdays | 11.30a – 6.30p
Term 1: 2nd Tuesday of September; Term 2: 2nd Tuesday of January; Term 3: Last Tuesday of April
Two Year Weekend | Six 10-week terms | Sundays | 11a – 6p
Term 1 & 4: 3rd Sun. of September; Term 2 & 5: 2nd Sun. of January; Term 3 & 6: Last Sun. of April (x2)
Two Year Evenings | Six 10-week terms | Tuesdays & Thursdays | 7p – 10p
Term 1 & 4: 3rd Tues. of September; Term 2 & 5: 2nd Tues. of January; Term 3 & 6: Last Tues. of April (x2)
Six Months (Two Ten-Week Terms) | Monday, Wednesday, and Friday | 11.30a – 6.30p
Term 1: January 28 | Term 2: April 22
Bespoke private tuition is also available for whole program. Contact us for more information.
Free this year: optional Sound Design classes and mentoring from our Electronic Music Academy
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