Songwriter, composer and producer Micheal Gomez gave an enlightening workshop on telling stories with one line.

After graduating from Southern Methodist University, Gomez went to London Music School to focus on guitar and performance. Since then, Gomez has collaborated on multiple projects with notable producers such as Chris Bell and Warren Huart.

Gomez started off the workshop by explaining the importance of a song title. A song title should have a deeper meaning behind it, not just words that happen to sound good together.

He stated songs should have more eloquence or special language because people don’t look to songs for a normal conversation. Rather, they gravitate towards songs to uncover deeper meanings of the feelings they experience.

Gomez then pulled up his Spotify Wrapped and gave examples of songs that have deeper meanings in the titles. One of these songs was “I’ll Go Crazy If Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” by U2.

Gomez emphasized that there is no one way to write a song or a song title, but that there are practices that can help get the process started.

To practice making impactful song titles, he had students get out a piece of paper and a pencil. Gomez stressed that humans are naturally more connected to their feelings when writing thoughts down on paper rather than typing on their phones.

He gave the students a single word and then gave them one minute to write down as many related or associated words. He then gave students a different word and gave them one minute to see how many words that could rhyme with it. Gomez then had students share their responses with each other.

With the page now full of words, he told the students to choose three words from their list to make a song title. The words chosen should somehow connect with each other, have a deeper meaning and sound interesting. He wrote multiple students’ titles on the boards to show the class some examples.

Gomez then discussed the different roles in making songs such as the songwriter, producer, label and marketing team. He spoke passionately about the necessity of marketing to make a song successful. TikTok is a marketing tool that many artists use, but there are thousands of videos made everyday so it is not a guaranteed strategy for success. He states artists should also do something associated with the song and reach an audience.

Towards the end of the workshop, Gomez acknowledged that not everyone wants to be a songwriter, but songwriting makes a great hobby and creative outlet for self expression.