Can songwriting be taught?
Anything can be taught – but the ability to achieve success with what you have learned, cannot be taught. We have never met a songwriter who said that he owed his success to some book he read or some course he took. Of course, he might have gained some knowledge along the way or picked up a few techniques from some book he read or course he took, but success has to be earned – not learned. Would joining the ISA help me to become a successful songwriter? Only in the sense that joining your local golf club could help you become the next Tiger Woods! (And no – that didn’t work for me either!) If you can write good songs, then you could obviously profit from the advice, the information, and the contacts which are on offer – otherwise we would not have songwriters staying with us year after year (in some cases, back as far as 1967), but we do not write your songs – you do. In other words, you have to be able to write good songs in the first place, or else there is little or nothing we can d
