That depends on a number of things like your current skill level, how quickly you want to advance, how thorough you want to be, how fast you work & learn, etc. 

From surveying my past students, it seems about 10 hours a week is a reasonable number. You can expect this number to be higher if you've never written, performed or produced a song before. You can expect it to be lower if you have been making music for a long time.

For those among you who are going all in on this: If you want to do nothing else, and just focus on HSA for four months, you can! There are definitely enough material and exercises to keep you engaged.

I can guarantee that you will learn something new in this course because I started it from scratch. Holistic Songwriting Academy is the result of analyzing thousands of hit songs and teaching you what I’ve learned. It is not a summary of other books or courses on the matter.

I started songwriting when I was 15 years old, I have a Bachelor of Music and even I learned a ton putting this course together. I’m not holding back, either. You’re getting all of my key insights into what makes great songs tick.

I'll be honest - it's not great. You should plan for at least a few hours a week on HSA. 

Let me explain what the course actually looks like: Every week, you unlock about 1.5 hours of new video content, as well as exercises for the rest of the week. Every week, we do two livestreams meetings. In the first, I answer any questions you may have about the videos, in the second, I answer questions that came up while doing the exercises. 

These livestreams are the crucial element in this discussions. You'll want to be up to speed for them. 

So what happens if something unexpected happens and you can't invest the time necessary? The course material will be accessible for years to come, so you can always catch up. Unfortunately, the ability to ask questions will be gone. 

I have marked all exercises that I consider crucial with an exclamation mark, so if you really have no time, just do those. Naturally, it is recommended that you come back for the rest.

In short, this is my Magnum Opus. The one to rule them all. Get this one, and you won’t need any of my other stuff*. I’ve refined and updated a lot of content from my Master Files and they have become the basis for Holistic Songwriting Academy, but this is about 90% new stuff. Yes, it’s a big ass course.

*although there is no overlap of this and "Getting Things Made" and "The Songwriting Decks", so you can get those in addition to this course. 

In short, no. It might help you in some ways because it can give you another perspective, and it might hinder you in others because it will guide your thinking in a specific way. But all three trimesters have been designed so they don’t require any previous knowledge except basics such as: 

You should know the names of all the instruments on the drums and you should know what a measure is. 

You will learn how to read music in the course - this is an unfortunate necessity for communicating the techniques you will learn. And we will cover some very basic music theory in the second trimester. But it's not our focus.

Not including music theory was actually one of my biggest personal breakthroughs as a teacher, when I realized that explaining upper structures and dominant substitutes don't actually matter very much in practice. 

It took a lot of confidence to decide against music theory for this course. It is, after all, my magnum opus and it should teach you everything I know. 

However, I realized that I learned how to write songs without being able to read music, and that almost all the hit songwriters I know don't read music either. 

So will that make the course less in-depth, less hardcore, less professional? I like to think the opposite - that thinking outside of music theory opens up a whole new world of teaching. 

I don't want to spend 4 modules explaining music theory to you, when in the end, you won't be using it very much. You might understand some things a little better, but honestly, it doesn't matter. Says me, Bachelor of Music and huge music theory nerd. 

Holistic Songwriting Academy takes place over one year, split into three trimesters. 

Each trimester is four months, with one new module each week. We take a break every four weeks (as requested by our alumni) - you can use this week off to digest the material so far, review modules, and do the assignments you didn't have time for. Each module ranges from 1-3 hours, and is packed full of short and focused information. I recommend you watch each new module as it comes out, and with lifetime access you can revisit them whenever you like.

Each trimester is an individual purchase, so it is possible to wait a year before you continue with the next trimester. 

Unfortunately, that's not possible at the moment since the content for trimesters 2 and 3 hasn't been created yet. 

Ultimately, we will create a discount, but the course will likely be more expensive by then, so if you're looking to save money, get it now - it will never be this cheap again.

The trimesters were designed to be consumed in the correct order (Groove, Pitch, Story) but it is possible to skip a trimester if you so choose. Since each trimester deals with one subject in isolation, if you're just interested in, say, Pitch, you could just enroll in that course. 

BUT, let me say it again: I believe each trimester to be vital and you will miss out if you don't take all three. We discuss writing groovier melodies in the Groove trimester. We talk about storytelling on drums in the Story trimester. And we talk about strumming patterns in the Pitch trimester. Writing a song is writing a web of interconnected elements, so naturally, there is some overlap between the courses. 

Yes - some of the exercises require you to send in a recorded song. If you have no experience recording music or programming MIDI, we can help you set that up. You will need to purchase a DAW and a few sound libraries. For the libraries, we recommend getting Native Instruments' basic Komplete bundle. It's an industry standard used by thousands of songwriters and producers world-wide.

Do you need the sound libraries? If you play drums, bass and guitar/piano, and you have a way of recording yourself, then no, you won't need to buy libraries. 

If you really don't want to learn how to produce music, you can also work with notation programs such as Sibelius, Finale, Notion or Guitar Pro, but we do NOT recommend it, as you won't have enough control over the sounds.

As a rule, we'll try to make due with whatever your limitations are, but the better prepared you come into this course, the more you'll get out of it.

No, none of the exercises require you to be able to play an instrument.

However, while not needed for this course, if you want to become a songwriter, playing either the guitar or the piano is HUGE! You don't need to be a great player and you don't need to be fast or overly technical, but you should be able to play chords at the very least. Knowing how to sing and produce music also helps immensely. 

Yes, I’ve designed this course for all sorts of musicians. I estimate that, even if you're a professional musician, about 40% of this course will still be news to you.