Although songwriting is commonly taught as a component of popular and commercial music programmes in higher education both in the UK and overseas, there is relatively little published theory on how the subject is taught and learned in formal educational environments. Further, there is no published consensus among teachers as to what might constitute effective pedagogical practice or on how undergraduate songwriters might develop as individual learners. Using a case study of five undergraduate songwriters taught in a formal environment by the researcher over an eight-month period, the research aims to develop an understanding of what songwriters learn and experience when they adopt co- investigative and group learning roles within the researcher's particular teaching and learning process. The thesis proposes that songwriting consists of four elements: music, creativity, language and communication and that the existing pedagogies of these elements, when critically examined within the context of the empirical research findings, may be able to provide a theoretical set of possible directions for the pedagogy of songwriting in higher education. Background theory is provided by literature reviews of pedagogical practice in higher education and of the distinctive pedagogies of music, creativity, language and communication and the case study data analysis is used to generate focal theory. The conclusion examines findings from the empirical study within the context of the background theory to identify some of the distinctive features of the teaching and learning of this particular case of songwriting in higher education, and to ask questions and make suggestions concerning future practice and research. The researcher's prior study of how professional songwriters develop outside of the academy, which found that professional songwriters recalled having developed songwriting skills in similar ways, is used as the main theoretical basis for the empirical research, which adapts findings from the prior study to offer a pedagogical framework within which five students are encouraged to develop as individual learners. In the empirical research findings, which are drawn from participant-observations, interviews, analysis of student journals and product- analysis, learners found methods that enabled them to generate songwriting ideas both they and the researcher considered effective in conveying meaning. As critical listeners the students appeared to become increasingly aware of the communicative quality of their work and emotion and confidence emerged as influential factors in the learners' ability to develop as songwriters. Analysis created both beneficial and detrimental effects and, within both personal and broader theoretical contexts existing modes of assessment were called into question.

This PhD study starts with a single question: 'how do songwriters collaborate to write effective songs?' I will test several hypotheses, including 'amateur and professional songwriters demonstrate different behaviours','songwriting represents the collision of existing ideas', 'song form is market-driven', 'songwriters learn by hearing extant songs' and 'process and product are interrelated and it is possible to change the latter by consciously manipulating the former'. In testing the hypotheses, I will discuss the titular 'Four Cs' - Constraint, Creativity, Copyright and Collaboration. The last is explained easily in the central question; the first is necessitated by the inescapable fact that popular song exhibits statistically probable norms relating to characteristics such as harmony, form, lyric theme and rhyme. The second (Creativity) obviously requires originality, which in music manifests itself as the third - Copyright. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the constraints of song, and to consider songwriters' ability to cross the lower originality threshold of creativity defined by copyright. The research is itself constrained to a study of the work of 'professional' songwriters, defined as individuals whose work has generated income through royalties. I take the philosophical position that songs can only exist when there is an additional listener to hear them. Historically and culturally I define 'songwriting' as British and American popular songwriting as practised between 1952 and 2012 (the first 60 years of the 'singles chart' in the UK), although in some cases it will be necessary to make reference to slightly earlier sources . Three evidence bases are used: real-time recqrdings of songwriting sessions, immediate retrospective reports by songwriters, and later retrospective interviews. The first of these is auto-ethnographic; I have documented my own collaborative processes across a variety of real-world composition and songwriting projects. The research draws on existing academic literature, particularly in the fields of popular musicology and cognitive psychology, but also making reference to tertiary fields such as law, sociology, literature and philosophy. This thesis does not posit a 'template method' for songwriting - even a cursory examination of the evidence suggests that no such thing exists. Rather, the intention is to identify and analyse the way songwriting teams negotiate the creative and problem-solving challenges of writing effective songs.