Latin Music Legend Talks Songcraft in a New Berklee Course In Latin Songwriting, visiting artist Claudia Brant will focus on the value of collaboration, working across genres, and how to approach lyric translations.
By
Bryan Parys
January 30, 2023
Image courtesy of the artist
When songwriting legend Claudia Brant says that she wants to help students become pro songwriters, you can be sure she knows what shes talking about. The Argentina native, who now resides in L.A., is a multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner and has earned top accolades such as Latina Songwriter of the Year from both SESAC and ASCAP, and her song No Me Doy por Vencido, cowritten with Luis Fonsi, is the longest-leading No. 1 song ever on Billboard's Latin Pop Airplay chart, with 30 weeks in the top spot.
Brant was named the 2023 Herb Alpert Visiting Artist for Berklees Songwriting Department, and in the spring semester she will teach the course Latin Songwriting, which will cover song form and structure, lyrical concepts, melodic structure and development, effective lyric translations from English to Spanish, and more. While Brant is one of the most lauded songwriters in the Latin music world, her expertise stretches across many genres, languages, and collaborators. Her songs have been recorded by artists such as Camila Cabello, John Legend, Carlos Santana, Barbra Streisand, and Demi Lovato, to name a few, and she's worked with an equally long list of other writers and producers, from Bruno Mars and Dianne Warren to Armando vila and Danny Elfman.
In the following interview, edited for length and clarity, Brant gives an overview of the kinds of topics and skills she'll cover this semester, including the value of collaboration and humility, what it takes to stay musically versatile, and the joys and challenges of lyric translation.
Congratulations on being named the Herb Alpert Visiting Scholar. Could you talk a little about the course you'll be teaching? Basically Im going to go over all the details of writing a song-you know, the rules, the rhymes, the topliners, the tracks, the splits, the construction of a song, chorus, verse, bridge, all the basics that probably most of the people that are going to be with me already know, but its good to confirm those ideas and have them ask me any questions.
And for me, one of the most important things in writing a song is collaboration. I think that collaboration is the key. So, collaboration, meaning from writing a song and sharing it with your peers to see what their reaction is and what they think should be changed or should stay [to] getting together a group of three people who write a song from scratch. Put them together in different groups, give them different genres, give them different titles, give them different concepts, or even have them pick them and then have all of us criticize and give an opinion on what we are were hearing.
What's the key to being a good collaborator, particularly in terms of receiving feedback on a new song? I think that the word is humbleness. And I learned humbleness when I was a starting songwriter, and I was put in sessions with people that had been doing it forever to listen to them, and [Id] hear them say, Thats not right. That title doesnt work. The concept is not clear. The rhyming is not perfect. A lot of things that I would hear, and I would have to say, wait a minute, hes right. He has it together.
I write all kind of genres-I write from pop to salsa to bolero to rock to alternative-and I try this humbleness. Whenever I sit down with a guy that writes mostly regional Mexican [music], for example I can grasp from them that they have a certain way of using certain subjects certain words that me, coming from Argentina, I have to learn.
We are learning all the time. Learn from a regional Mexican guy and learn from a salsa guy. And I let them take the lead. So when they say, This word; we would never use this word, I have to shut up and listen, and use the word that they suggest they would say. So, I think that collaboration and humbleness go together.
What do you think students will get from this course that they can't get anywhere else? I think there are a zillion tricks that I can teach to them, and I think that the ultimate goal is to get them to be pros. And to get them to be pros, they need the collaboration, they need the tools, they need to be able to hear the feedback of their companions and all of that.
I cannot tell you youre going to become a pro after writing 20 songs . But Im willing to stimulate these kids so that they write every day, because writing every day is what gets you where I am.
Could you talk about your experience working across so many genres and languages? I think theres been more of that on the production side, like songs that Ive written that were originally ballads, and then were they turned into salsa, or they were turned into urban.
So, its more of that, more than me changing the genre in the middle. I remember I had two experiences, two trips where I, learned a lot from scratch with two teams, two different trips in Medell n, Colombia, where I ended up doing a lot of reggaeton. And then another trip I did to Rio de Janeiro where I ended up collaborating with a bunch of Brazilian artists, Brazilian writers, and that opened my mind. I think I learned a lot from that. Thats why I keep saying that the collaboration is key.
[Regarding translation] I think that when I do Spanish versions-I do a lot of them-its a very complicated job. Its not something easy to do. Im probably going to give the [students] a couple of samples, and Im going to ask them to deliver [translations] for next class. Its a matter of being strict to the rhythm and being loyal to the meaning, and being very strict with the vowels. The vowels should fall in the same spot as they do in English
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Latin Music Legend Talks Songcraft in a New Berklee Course In Latin Songwriting, visiting artist Claudia Brant will focus on the value of collaboration, working across genres, and how to approach lyric translations.
