A day after his biggest show ever, in front of 15,000 people in Toronto, Charlie Puth B.M. 13 returned to the first stage he played, the Red Room at Cafe 939.
In town for his Voicenotes tour, Puth stopped by Berklee on July 12 to talk with Kara DioGuardi and students about songwriting, to workshop student-written songs, and to play an evening set at the Red Room.
During their 45-minute clinic, Puth and DioGuardi covered everything from the importance of collaboration to the perils of imitating what's hot. Here are some takeaways from that conversation.
Tell Your Truth Puth says he first realized the importance of telling the truth in songs while taking DioGuardi's class, Hit Songwriting, at Berklee in 2012.
I remember you saying to me that these lyrics-it's almost like they didn't happen to you, it's almost like you made it up. You experience interesting things in your life-just put melody to them, Puth said. In fact, it was in auditioning for that class that Puth started thinking about the song that would later become See You Again, which has 3.7 billion YouTube views.
You can't escape your truth, DioGuardi said. When something moves you like that, it is your destiny to write it. You have to write it. The key to doing this, she says, is to check your ego at the door and to let yourself be vulnerable with your collaborators.
Also, people have the BS sensor, Puth added. They really do. They know right away. It's a human-to-human interaction All a song is is a conversation with a couple solos in it.
Collaborate One more thing Puth took away from that 2012 class was that he can't make it alone. He recalls DioGuardi telling him that he wasn't yet a good enough producer to make great songs.
You said if you want to grow as a singer-songwriter, producer, whatever you want to be...you have to collaborate with people, Puth recalled, adding that he found DioGuardi's advice humbling. But it changed his career.
I wouldn't have written See You Again on my own. So collaboration, the thing that you said was the most important thing, ended up being the most important thing, he later said.
If both sexes can sing the song, that means it's a hit record.
-Charlie Puth
Find Your Supporters and Keep the Faith Before coming to Berklee, Puth had heard for years that he couldn't sing and should just stick to playing piano. It was only after he went to college and was around all his new friends that he started to sing, with their encouragement. His lesson: listen to your supporters.
Also, stay resilient and work hard, even if success is slow to come. It took Puth 10 years to get to where he is now. This guy worked harder than everybody. And that's why he's sitting here, DioGuardi said.
It's not in a distant future kind of thing. It can be as soon as you want it to be. But don't get discouraged just because someone your age is killing it right now. You're going to kill it, too, Puth said.
Season Your Songs Judiciously Having a secret ingredient at your disposal doesnt mean you should use it all the time, Puth said.
Just because you have a black truffle, and it literally goes with everything-you can put it on pizza, you can put it on raviolis, you can put in on spaghetti squash, you can put it on anything you want-it doesn't mean that it needs to be there. So I just throw the truffle in, just one. Not 100, because [of the] Law of Diminishing Returns.
Make Your Music Accessible Similarly, most listeners don't have the range of Whitney Houston, but still like to sing along to songs, so make them accessible, Puth said.
It's all about it being easy to digest for the average, everyday listener, he said. That means both men and women. If both sexes can sing the song, that means it's a hit record.
If It Sounds Like a Hit DioGuardi asked Puth what advice he would give to himself seven years ago, when he was a student at Berklee.
He'd go with his gut and flesh out the idea for See You Again, he said. I would tell myself to develop that idea that was in my head when I was walking down Newbury street, that it's not too simple, and that people might actually want to hear it. And that my life is interesting enough when I was in college that that heartbreak I experienced the other weekend, someone else has experienced that in maybe in another way.
And he wouldn't worry about what's hot, because the stuff that's now on the radio was made a year ago.
DioGuardi agreed: If it sounds like a hit, it's probably not a hit, because that means that you're doing something that's already done before.
Related categories:
News
Related Reading
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
A day after his biggest show ever, in front of 15,000 people in Toronto, Charlie Puth B.M. 13 returned to the first stage he played, the Red Room at Cafe 939.
