Instrumental lessons can be short. They can be with small groups, whole classes, individuals – who may, or may not, be motivated; they can be in a school, a music centre, or at home – yours or the student's. In short, all situations are different, but lesson content should be broadly the same: playing a wide range of music, learning the technical skills to perform it, and enjoying the experience of being creative musicians – understanding how music works.
So where does composition fit in to this (already wide) remit, and how does it contribute to instrumental learning? Improvising and composing are part of the musical skill set that we should be passing on to our pupils, but I know from experience that not all teachers feel comfortable doing this. I also know that most teachers will have a go at teaching improvisation, even if they are shy about doing it themselves. Moving on to composition is just a short step away.
Improvisation: the first step to composing
Hopefully, any eight-year-old these days can tell us that improvising is ‘making up something on the spot’. Spontaneous music-making (or musicking) is a lot easier if parameters are set, such as ‘make up something over this backing-track (in D minor), using the notes D, F, and G’. Any music played using these notes will sound great, and after some copy-back and call-and-response exercises, students' confidence in improvising will grow and evolve – they can reliably produce a melody, underpinned by rhythmic structure that has some kind of development (such as question/answer, with phrases growing in length). Refining and building on this and recording it in some fashion, so that it can be reproduced, is the process of composition. This involves making considered decisions, not only about notes, rhythm and structure, but about expression – using the inter-related dimensions of music – and performance, which is fundamental to instrumental learning.
Everyone can compose
Jennie Healy describes how experimenting with musical ideas can unlock musical imaginations, ‘open[ing] up a whole new world of musical possibilities, deepening musicianship along the way’ (Beach/Spruce, 2024, p. 115). She goes on to dispel the myth of the ‘creative genius’, that some people have a gift and some don't. We can all be composers; activities around improvising and composing improve confidence and technique in instrumental playing and develop control of the instrument through experimentation away from the dots. This is particularly important in whole-class instrumental teaching where children are learning about music through their instrument.
Taking the elements of a piece to compose something new increases understanding of the piece as a whole. Paul Harris writes that part of his Simultaneous Learning approach includes teaching through a piece's ingredients (Harris, 2014, p. 12). He describes a group lesson that explores the components of a piece by starting away from the music: clapping rhythms, playing rhythmic patterns or melodic phrases by ear, playing scales/arpeggios from the piece while varying the dynamics or articulation or improvising short phrases over a pulse. Through these activities the learner becomes acquainted with the musical components before approaching the written music. This leads to agency, as described by others:
When playing a piece of music … instead of just following the expression marks … they are bringing their own personal creativity to the performance … understanding music from the inside. (Evans/Fautley, 2024, p. 7).
Stimuli for composing
So, where do we start? Here are some ideas:
Film music. When running creative workshops with the Bollywood Brass Band, I often use film music as a starting point for composition, particularly the song ‘Jai Ho’ which comes from the hit film Slumdog Millionaire (2008). A worldwide hit, by composer A.R. Rahman, with the Pussy Cat Dolls, the song enjoys a residual love and recognition despite its age (or perhaps because of it). The main melodic themes are very simple: ‘Jai Ho’ is a two-note phrase, and the chorus uses only four notes, making the song a great choice for beginners. The film plot can be reduced to a simple storyline: a boy grows up in a slum in India, he goes to the big city, he has adventures, he falls in love, enters Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and wins the competition! Despite his lack of formal education, his life adventures have taught him so much that he wins the jack-pot – hurrah! Or Jai Ho, ‘victory’! The accompanying video for the song shows scenes from the film, a great stimulus for creating new music. To date, ideas suggested by participants have included:
- Car chase
- Fear/nervousness
- Love theme
- Winning the competition, victory.
Using the musical themes in ‘Jai Ho’ as a starting point, and with some guidance, children have produced some fantastic musical ideas to illustrate the action and feelings from the film.
A winter tune. Last term I asked my young pupils to compose a Christmas/winter tune. We followed a simple process:
- We thought of some Christmassy/wintery words
- We looked for possible rhymes and put the words into sentences
- We played the rhythm of the words on one note
- We thought about how to interpret the words in music, e.g. ‘twinkling lights’ inspired short notes, ‘falling snow’ was a descending phrase
- We developed our one-note rhythms into melodic question/answer phrases
- We thought about dynamics and interpretation.
This made a whole song – job done!
Supporting tests. Trinity College London's exam syllabus includes the option for improvisation as part of their supporting tests. The fragments from the Motivic Stimulus exercises are a great inspiration for composition, particularly if pupils are used to using them for improvisation.
Here are some examples:
Notation
Sitting down with a blank piece of paper in front of you (be it physical or virtual) is never a good starting point for creativity, but recording your thoughts somehow is part of the composition process.
The ‘Winter Song’ was developed over a number of weeks, making lessons creative and fun, and we learned a lot about how music works along the way. As part of the creative process, we thought about how to write down the song. This brought up the issue of notation. These children are familiar with stave notation, but working out how to notate what they had just made up really made us think about how rhythm and pitch work and how that relates to the page – very useful. We thought about dynamics, and yes, we did start by drawing some treble clefs so that their composition would look like printed music. Here's an example:
There are other ways to record musical output; no special skills are required to create a visual representation of music. Try playing this graphic score, for instance:
It is less accurate, so additional information is needed, such as key, starting note, articulation and so forth.
Development
Some children – and teachers – will have more of an affinity with composing than others, and some may show an emerging composer identity. Indicators might include the following (Evans/Fautley, 2024, p. 79):
- Responding imaginatively to a given brief
- Experimenting with different playing techniques
- Understanding how instruments … sound together
- Composing … outside class.
As students progress, there is the option to write an own composition for grade exams. Trinity suggests that this can enhance students' musical experience in a number of ways:
- It brings music theory to life
- It enables learners to express their creativity
- It helps with developing an understanding of musical styles and composers
- It provides flexibility and choice, making the exam personalised and tailored to the needs of the individual
- It encourages a holistic approach to learning music: performing, composing, listening, improvising.
At GCSE, pupils are required to do two compositions which are assessed in Year 11. Pupils who have been improvising and composing in instrumental lessons will of course have an advantage when it comes to creating ideas, including structure, melodic development, harmonic progression and expression. I encourage you to reflect on how you can give your pupils that head start. Let's get all children composing, and encourage those who are showing an interest by alerting the school music teacher and including pupils' compositions in school performances, embedding composition in instrumental lessons.
Links
- listenimaginecompose.com
- icancompose.com
- MES: Planning for Composition at GCSE
- TCL: Starters for Own Composition and Specimen Improvisation Tests
