Tips for songwriting with MAS Education Director Chad Shank

Chad Shank is a songwriter and music producer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has been writing and recording his own music since middle school, heavily influenced by artists that made the “Minneapolis Sound” famous like Prince, Janet Jackson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and The Time.

As an adult Chad worked in radio for many years, and operated his own independent record label.

Since then Chad has discovered that he has a true passion for the craft of songwriting and after studying songwriting with Berklee College of Music, he started sharing his experience and songwriting knowledge with other songwriters through The Minnesota Association of Songwriters (MAS), and his own YouTube Channel and Meetup Group “At Home Songwriting.” Chad leads monthly online songwriting workshops for both groups and released weekly songwriting videos on YouTube.

Chad also had released over 300 of his own songs online.

We talked about:

• Song Talk Radio’s 2022 Songwriting Challenge
• Berklee College of Music online courses
• The Minnesota Association of Songwriters meetup workshops, led by Chad
• How counting syllables relates to your melody development
• How learning about songwriting and music theory improves your ability to write good songs
• Chad’s own “At Home Songwriting” Meetup group and YouTube channel