I’ve finished the syllabus for the songwriting class, revising the old one that is. There’s a lot maybe too much but whatever. Eight assignments + keeping a journal which is later handed in + making a presentation on one album chosen from a group of seven I selected in advance + presenting a song that changed your life + performing at least three times in our open stage which happens for 30 minutes each Wednesday + one larger assignment to write a bad song and a thousand words explaining why it is so bad. The climax of the course is us all listening back to each person’s bad song. The only thing missing for now is whether I get any special guests to do Q & A. I previous years I’ve had some fun surprises and success. Drake’s lawyer, Feist, Lina Pimienta, Kevin Drew, Rami Jaffee of Foo Fighters, L. Stu Young who engineered for Prince, Guns and Roses, Julien Baker. Even Bob Lefsetz agree until he realized it took place in the morning. The chief new thing I’m doing this year stems from how many assignments people have handed in that read like reporting what Wikipedia states and I would rather feel like they actually connect with the material so I’ve offered the choice in most assignments to either write a 400 word paper and bibliography or else write and record a song about what they learned, as long as it adheres to a certain structure of songwriting so I can lean on a rubric to mark them and thereby satisfy the higher ups who employ me. I think this is a decent solution since it is a songwriting class.