YOU WRITE THE SONGS?
THEY TEACH THE CLASS

Universal Music Publishing Group has partnered with InsideSessions, parent Vivendi Universal’s co-venture with Penguin Putnam, to create a vocational course for aspiring songwriters.

Students who pay $49.95 for the hour-long video course Songwriting and Publishing: A Songwriter’s Guide to Making it in the Music Business—featuring advice from Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Sheryl Crow, Sting, among other artists, and a host of execs—will also get written feedback on a song submission from UMPG A&R staff and a chance to get a pub deal.

The staff’s favorite submissions arriving before June 30 will be eligible for three $1000 pub deals. Let’s see, minus manager’s commission, attorney fees, rent, food and various expenses, winners will only end up about $600 in the hole.

"There are many resources available to aspiring songwriters, but only InsideSessions’ programs deliver practical advice and actionable feedback straight from the biggest names in the business," proclaimed UMPG worldwide Prexy David Renzer. "And when I say ‘actionable,’ I don’t mean legally. Read the fine print."

InsideSessions has aggressively marketed its new-media educational materials for would-be recording artists and authors via music conferences, VU-owned Net outlets like MP3.com and other musicians’ sites. The business plan leverages the executive and creative personnel at its founders’ disposal to create lesson materials that are available online and via DVD or home video. It’s another example of VU’s very proactive approach to surviving in a "convergence" world.

In other songwriting contest news, one lucky winner of HITS’ "Brill Building Memories" competition will be locked in an airless office, deprived of food and water and forced to churn out 30 songs for Pat Boone.