The Birth and Journey of a Song: A Songwriting Masterclass (Udemy.com)
Grammy nominated artist and music producer guides students through songwriting, recording, and music publishing.
Created by: Music Matchr
Last updated April 2019
What you will learn
- To create and record songs that sound competitive in today's music market, with an understanding of how to generate revenue and royalties from those compositions.
- Navigate the maze that is today's music industry and put all the moving parts into a cohesive strategy for success.
How it compares
Against the other 270 rated Udemy courses in Music on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.4 out of 5higher than 14% of them
- Reviews87#221 of 271 by number of reviews
- Length3.4 hourslonger than 50% of them
- Last updatedApril 2019earlier than 85% of them
Course Description
Tom Marolda is an iconic songwriter, musician, record producer, engineer and music publisher who has appeared on more than 50 albums either as an artist, producer or composer. He has been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards and has worked on gold and platinum albums with artists such as Cher, The Bee Gees, The Killers, Imagine Dragons, Rod Stewart, Kurupt, Dr. Dre, Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi and many more.
Besides writing and recording songs for a variety of major TV shows, from America’s Next Top Model to the Theme Song for the CBS INSIDER show and Smallville, Marolda also has songs in many major films including “STAYIN’ ALIVE” starring John Travolta, “DAYS OF THUNDER” starring Tom Cruise, “ONCE IN THE LIFE” starring Lawrance Fishburn, “CARMEN” starring Beyonce Knowles, “O” starring Josh Hartman, and “ROCKY BALBOA” starring Sylvester Stallone to name a few.
Tom is here to give you guidance over every aspect of a song, from its birth and along its journey to the ears of listeners.
Tom has taken his years of experience, knowledge, and expertise and put it into a single Master Class.
You'll learn the hallmarks of great songwriting and the tricks that the pros use to captivate listeners. Tom will walk you through a recording and mixing session and you can see exactly what he does to achieve sound quality that will be competitive in today's music market. You'll also learn about income streams and what steps you can take to make monetize your songs once you're ready to share them with the world.
The journey of a song from its inception through to its release is a harrowing and windy road to navigate. There are so many moving parts, so many mountains to climb, hurtles to jump and directions to travel it can leave an artist feeling like they don’t know the way forward.
This course will help you navigate the maze of the music industry and will aid you in gaining the knowledge you need to propel your career forward.
Instructor Details
- 4.4 Rating
87 Reviews
Music Matchr
Taylor Barnett, founder at MusicMatchr, had his first musical experience when he was enrolled in piano lessons at a young age. After several lessons the instructor harshly told his parents that he had no musical talent and that they were wasting their money. A rough start to what would be a life dedicated to his passion for music. By the age of 12 Taylor proved that assumption wrong when he first picked up the guitar. From then on he never looked back. Over the years Taylor has honed his skills as a player and worked to master the many styles and genres of modern guitar playing, and he is still learning and growing as a musician to this day. He has plenty of performance experience under his belt, playing with his original band of long time friends and performing in worship groups for local churches. Taylor also pursued music academically in high school, earning high honors for classical performance that would eventually lead him to enroll as a performance major in the Jazz program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. There he was part of the Jazz ensemble and had the opportunity to work with some the most respected and talented guitar instructors in the country. In addition, Taylor took on a minor degree for Music Technology which involves the art of recording, mixing, and multi-media. Soon after completing his degrees in music and business, he continued pursuing his passion through the art of music education and continues to enjoy working with studen
More courses by Music Matchr
Master Guitar In 90 Days: Step-By-Step Lessons For Beginners (2020)
4.4 (1,175 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 24.8h
$22.99
More Music courses
Music Theory Comprehensive Complete: Parts 13, 14, & 15 (2026)
5.0 (315 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 8.4h
$16.99
Jazz Piano - Ultimate Beginners Course for Piano & Keyboard (2025)
4.9 (2,224 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 8.1h
$15.99
Music Composition with the Piano: Ultimate Keyboard Theory (2020)
4.9 (1,679 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 7.8h
$16.99
Electronic Music Production with Ableton Live [2025]
4.9 (1,088 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 14.8h
$19.99
How to Play Djembe,Drum & Rhythm and teach Children. Level 1 (2020)
4.9 (533 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 2.1h
$69.99
Reviews
By Laurie Schmeckpeper on 1/13/2022
Awesome!! I totally enjoyed this course. Very informative and interesting. Highly Recommended!!
By Ayal Sharon on 12/5/2020
A good 2.5 hour overview class of the basics of how songs are written, recorded, mixed, mastered, and an overview of the music business today.
By Cesar Lecaros on 10/23/2020
Takes you thru the whole journey of making, releasing, and everything else when it comes to music.
By Rashaad Faltz on 9/21/2019
I’ve only seen up to the second episode so far and from what I’ve seen, it was just an interview with a few sprinkles of of info. Hopefully it will become more helpful in later videos.
By Bobbie Smith on 9/24/2018
Awesome. This course gives you everthing you need to know from find a title to making an income. Thank you.
By Billy Davis on 1/10/2018
When you hear things from people that are successful and listen to their advice. The truth comes out of them. I will keep the thoughts and the mentorship in my mind. Listen to all types of music. Have passion for what you believe. I have passion for writing music. Surround myself with people of knowledge and passion.
By Bruce Murray on 12/28/2017
Starting off with the Richie Sambora interview certainly put this course into a whole different league than most song writing courses. Can’t wait to see what is coming next!
By J C on 12/5/2017
What an opportunity to get into the minds of one of the greats and see how things work within! Thoroughly enjoyed the course, good flow and great content. Tom is great at explaining and conveying content so it is easily understood. Unlike other courses, he keeps the audience engaged. His tips and his tricks are an exceptional added bonus! If there are other courses from Tom, I would definitely subscribe!
By Michelle Rautenbach on 11/30/2017
Good presenter with Clearly a lot of Knowledge. Just expected more out of the course though it was very basic.
By Muhammad Arif Jaya on 11/29/2017
More or less this is what course summary what you hear in a lot of places in internet, there's nothing new on the board. This course shows you what you expect when you started to come into the music industry, last but not least this course not much giving you some real aspect of the industry. Although the presenter really experienced in the industry, the course failed to shows the presenter experience. I know this volume is more like the introduction of the "Master Class", but at this very first volume of the course they should let the presenter more talk about his insight rather than suddenly shown not-comprehensive-kinda-fake producing a song chapter on an introductionary "volume". I'd love to hear more focused course in the upcoming volume rather than this volume. Like only songwriting at volume two, only mixing at volume three, and so forth. TL;DR This volume is so random, contain really shallow of information (I believe the presenter could share more insight). I do not recommend this chapter for someone who start on their music journey, because it would confuse them, but for someone who need some insight of music industry insider this somewhat might fill their curiosity.
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 88 / 100





![Electronic Music Production with Ableton Live [2025]](/programming/music/images/6523651_6960_3.jpg?v=1789443824)

