About Pat

Pat Pattison is a professor at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches lyric writing and poetry. 

 

In addition to his four books, Songwriting Without Boundaries (Penguin/Random House), Writing Better Lyrics, 2nd Edition (Penguin/Random House, The Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure (Hal Leonard), and The Essential Guide to Rhyming (Hal Leonard), Pat has developed seven online courses for Berklee Online: five on lyric writing (including two Master's level courses), one on poetry, and one on creative writing, all available here. In addition, more than 2,500,000 students have enrolled in his Coursera MOOC "Songwriting: Writing the Lyric" since its first run in 2013. He has written over seventy-five articles for various blogs and magazines, including American Songwriter, and has chapters in both The Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University Press of Mississippi) and the Handbook on Creative Writing (Edinburgh University Press). 

 

Pat continues to present songwriting clinics across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Pat’s students include Grammy-winners, professional songwriters, and major recording artists, including Gillian Welch, John Mayer, Tom Hambridge, Joelle James, Karmin, American Authors, Betty Who, Liz Longley, Charlie Worsham, Greg Becker, Justin Tranter, and many more.