Happening Soon
JAN 23-FEB 1: SongStudio Workshopping Online!
Join us online for a fun, exciting, and rewarding week of songwriting, taking a look inside hit songs, performing, and re-writing your songs with professional mentors.
We’ve been running songwriter workshops every year since 2005, and it just keeps getting better. We started online workshops in 2020 (remember 2020?) and found ourselves working with participants and mentors from all over the place.
Yes, we all discovered that being in an online meeting offered some huge benefits to our songwriting workshop:
- We are able to be “together” and work on your songs, without the expenses of travel and accommodation
- We are able to invite participants and mentors to join us from far away places
- We are able to jump into private exercises easily, since you have your own private space
- We are able to offer most of the same terrific programming that we offer in-person
We appreciate that online meetings are not a perfect substitute for in-person meetings. We are prepared to help you get the best out of an online workshop by:
- helping you to get the best out of your devices (internet/WiFi and our computers/tablets)
- taking breaks and keeping the online days from getting too long
- recording the sessions so that you can re-watch at a time that is convenient for you (replays are made available a short time after the recorded event)
We are also doing our best to schedule the online workshop to:
- allow you to participate without taking vacation days from your job
- allow you to participate at a reasonable time of day from any North American Timezone; note that we have had participants join from as far away as New Zealand!
What We’ll be Doing
Over the course of two weekends (and a few weeknights in between), we will:
- Work YOUR songs with our professional mentors, to make you a better songwriter
- Run guided songwriting exercises with homework and “office hour” opportunities
- Hear the songs you’ve finished and the ones that you’re still working on, in a safe and friendly space
- Bring you into a fabulous community of songwriters who will become your friends and collaborators
- Detour into important non-songwriting music business topics where it’s useful to do so
Your Mentors
Along with our intrepid SongStudio team (Blair Packham and Allister Bradley), you will work with our team of songwriting mentors who are sure to elevate your songwriting.
*** Our mentors’ touring schedules typically prevent us from publicly confirming their participation until closer to the workshop, so stand by as we announce this year’s mentors. ***
CHECK OUT THE LIST of this year’s mentors and past mentors and prepare to be amazed!
Schedule: Friday, January 23rd – Sunday, Feb 1, 2026
** All times listed are Eastern Standard Time (Toronto). **
** Schedule is subject to change. Check back to see updates. **
Friday, January 23rd
| 8:00 – 8:30pm | Welcome to SongStudio |
| 8:30 – 10:30pm | Getting to Know You One-on-one introductions to our mentors and the other songwriters, in a “speed dating” fashion |
Saturday, January 24th
| 10:30 – 11:00am | Arrival and Mingling |
| 11:00 – 11:30am | Co-writing Conversation Why co-write? How do you approach co-writing? Let’s find a co-writer in the room. |
| 11:30am – 12:45pm | Keynote Address With our guest keynote speaker TBA |
| 12:45 – 1:30pm | BREAK – Grab a meal, and sign-up for workshopping |
| 1:30 – 4:00pm | Song Workshops Small groups, each with a workshop leader. Participants each perform a song and seek suggestions from the mentor. TODAY’S MENTORS INCLUDE: Lisa Dalbello Sean Bertram and TBA |
Sunday, January 25th
| 10:30 – 11:00am | Arrival and Mingling |
| 11:00am – 12:15pm | What’s Going On In That Song? We’ll take apart a great song and see how its parts all fit together to make it awesome |
| 12:15 – 12:45pm | Writing Assignment Explained On your own time between today and next weekend, you can be writing one or more new songs for “homework” |
| 12:45 – 1:30pm | BREAK – Grab a meal, and sign-up for workshopping |
| 1:30 – 4:00pm | Song Workshops Small groups, each with a workshop leader. Participants each perform a song and seek suggestions from the mentor. TODAY’S MENTORS INCLUDE: Lisa Dalbello Sean Bertram and TBA |
Tuesday, January 27th
| 8:00 – 10:30pm | Office Hours Allister and Blair can help you with your songwriting homework! Co-Writing Time You may choose to get together with a co-writer in one of our private meeting rooms Song Lounge Hang out and share songs with your fellow writers |
Thursday, January 29th
| 8:00 – 10:30pm | Office Hours Allister and Blair can help you with your songwriting homework! Co-Writing Time You may choose to get together with a co-writer in one of our private meeting rooms Song Lounge Hang out and share songs with your fellow writers |
Saturday, January 31st
| 10:30 – 11:00am | Arrival and Mingling |
| 11:00am – 12:15pm | What’s Going On In That Song? We’ll take apart a great song and see how its parts all fit together to make it awesome |
| 12:15 – 12:45pm | What Have You Written? Let’s have a listen to your homework |
| 12:45 – 1:30pm | BREAK – Grab a meal, and sign-up for workshopping |
| 1:30 – 4:00pm | Song Workshops Small groups, each with a workshop leader. Participants each perform a song and seek suggestions from the mentor. TODAY’S MENTORS INCLUDE: TBA |
Sunday, February 1st
| 10:30 – 11:00am | Arrival and Mingling |
| 11:00am – 11:30am | What Have You Written? Let’s have a listen to more of your homework |
| 11:30am – 12:45pm | Music Industry Guest Let’s change gears a bit, and talk about what happens with our songs after they’re written |
| 12:45 – 1:30pm | BREAK – Grab a meal |
| 1:30 – 3:30pm | Demo Derby Our panel of music industry experts will listen to your pre-recorded songs and steer the discussion to how those songs might thrive in the music market. TODAY’S MENTORS INCLUDE: TBA |
| 3:30 – 4:00pm | Group Photo and Farewell |
Registration Price
C$549 (+tax) for registrations received before December 1st, 2025.
(C$699 + tax for registrations received December 1st or later. SongStudio alumni receive a 10% discount off this full price.)
