Songwriting & Production Academy

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 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.

 

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

Academy Application Form

To be in the loop when we release more dates, sign up to our newsletter towards the top right of this page. We don’t send many, you can easily unsubscribe, and we never share our data with anyone, ever.

Stay Connected

We will not share your information


    Testimonials

    It’s a great school and have great teachers. Some schools care only about fancy gear in the classroom and forget about the essential: the teachers!

    João Gama

    Being from a songwriting and artist background, I was keen to learn the production side in Logic. The instructor was amazing and I felt he explained things in a language I could understand. Now I am zipping around it almost as comfortably as I am when writing a song!

    Natasha Bedingfield

    From the Blog

    • 4 Core Principles of Music Production for Beginners

      Music is a powerful medium of communication. As Shakespeare himself asserted “When words fail, music speaks”. Technically speaking, the music or the songs that we hear comprise of two basic parts: the instruments (guitar, violin, piano, drums etc) and the vocals which are collectively......

    • 5 Creative Production Tips for Vocals

      5 Creative Music Production Tips for Vocals As vocals are one of the most important facets in modern music, it is imperative to keep them as a prominent part of the mix. Keeping vocals front and center is a no brainer, but there are......

    • Ableton Live 10 | New Features – What’s New VIDEO

      Now Ableton has made the big announcement, we can finally give you a first look! As New York City is our newest location, Garnish New York Ableton Live instructor Michael Hatsis (aka Bangingclude) goes through some of the new features in the new Ableton Live 10!......

    • Do you have to be able to play an instrument to produce and write songs?

      Do you have to be able to play an instrument to produce and write songs? by Chris Porter The moment you set foot inside of songwriting, it can feel as if you are going to be judged. By your peers, by the casual observer,......

    • How To Improve Bass In Music

      How To Improve Bass In Music Bass can be a very complicated part of your mix. Actually, we’d even go and say that the majority of home-producers or home-recorded work, don’t have a good low-end, which is really the basis (get it, bass-is?) for......

    • How to Record Vocals When Producing A Singer – Vocal Production

      How to Record Vocals When Producing A Singer – Vocal Production By Chris Porter Firstly, let’s explode the myth that vocals are anything other than another instrument, or colour (depending on how you like to view things!) that you use to build up a......

    • How to write better lyrics

      by Chris Porter Communicate, connect and feedback. This is critical. A great (or at least, better!) lyric has something to say and knows how to say it. The subject matter is irrelevant if you get this critical step right. Run your ideas past trusted......

    • Mobile Music Making Apps

      Inspiration can strike at any moment. Knowing you have a mobile music making app on your phone or tablet to cater for those moments where the light bulb flickers in your creative musical mind is essential. That’s why we have created a list of......

    • Navigation Basics for Logic Pro X

      Learning Your Way Around the Program In the previous article we spoke about treating Logic Pro X like a musical instrument. And, when learning a new instrument, it’s important to take some time and practice. But, just like much of the information on the......

    • Recording and Producing for Creative Musicians

      Logic Pro X Tips and Tricks for Beginners   Technology has made it possible for every musician (from newbies to seasoned pros) to fully realize the songs, ideas, and arrangements that are in our imagination, and produce professional-level recordings right from our own computers.......

    • Recording While Traveling

      A harmonious combination; new places, new people, new ideas and new sounds in different lands that present their own rhythms and culture can stir up something good in a natural and genuine way when recording while traveling. The perfect time to try new things,......

    • Songwriting Guide For Beginners

      It is absolutely okay if you’re not Johnny Cash or David Bowie, you can still write a song for that guitar tune in your head or vice versa. Songwriting is a skill indeed, however, with enough practice and right use of your imagination you......

    • Steps to Successful Songwriting

      There is a difference between a songwriter and a HIT songwriter. Not every songwriter kisses the sky. It’s not easy! While songwriting is purely a creative process, it involves the mindset, as well as the habits of the songwriter. If you want to attain......

    • The Advantages of Using Free Songwriting Software

      There are hundreds of songwriters out there, but some of them are much better than the others. One of the main reasons for that is that successful songwriters are able to create radio-friendly songs. In the past, songwriters were relying solely on their senses......

    • The Art of Soulful Songwriting

      by Chris Porter Most people can tell right away when an artist is writing from the heart. Soulful songwriting is perhaps the very essence of quality music and unfortunately there just isn’t enough of it. The truth of the matter is that there is......

    • What does a music producer do?

      by Chris Porter It would be easy to write an entire article arguing about exactly what this question means, but the simplest answer (and the truth of the matter) lies behind the scenes – of whatever parameters the interested parties have agreed to. Allow......

    Daily News, Worldwide