Composition is something that every musician interacts with at some point on their musical journey. Whether it be improvising in a band or playing around with chords on a guitar, composition exists all around us. But so often in schools, composition is confined to the exam board expectations, and students see composition as coursework. This can lead to composing being a ‘paint by numbers’ process rather than an extension to their musicianship. By creating a ‘culture of composition’, we can encourage our students to see it for what it really is.
What is a culture of composition?
A culture is all about the behaviours of a group of people, but more importantly it is a way of life. A culture of composition is therefore one where students see composition as an essential experience. Not only do they value composing as an activity, but they use it as part of their musical journey. Composing becomes more than a project – it's a pathway to musical understanding. Within a culture of composition, students and teachers alike turn to the act of creating music to ensure that they learn something new.
All too often, teachers put composition in an exam box and bring it out for one lesson a week. Yet composition is a tool that can help students build their core knowledge and understanding of music. For example, if we want students to understand a chord progression or cadence, then what better way than through creating these; generating a chord sequence or notating a cadence will ultimately unlock the full understanding of the concept you are teaching. However, I would go a step further, and refer to the much-discussed concept of the inter-related dimensions of music. What we want is not only to explain a concept to our students, but allow them to hear it, play it themselves and then create with it. You could call this ‘composing for learning’, but I call it a culture of composition.
Creative composing
There is a time and place for a composition ‘project’, a set brief or process involving pastiche. We want our students to have scaffolds in place for them to learn how to create music in a specific way. But we also want them to find their own voice in music. ‘Creative composing’ is my way of allowing students the freedom to compose and create musical ideas from scratch. A great place to start is using the voice to come up with short motifs or melodies. How often do we allow our students to use their own voice, the first instrument, to generate ideas? I sometimes provide a rhythm, pulse or backing beat and then allow students to sing an idea over the top.
Every month I co-host, with Liz Dunbar, an online meeting for the Music Teachers Association. Liz and I are always looking for ways to support students, and recently we interviewed composer Judith Weir as part of our Music Teacher Monday session. It was fascinating to ask Weir where she starts when approaching a composition. Something that stuck with me links directly to this idea of allowing space for creativity: sometimes, she said, she simply allows her hand to fall on the piano to see what she can find. What a thought to share with our students, and Judith Weir certainly knows her stuff when it comes to composition.
If we are going to create a culture of composition, then we need to allow our students space to let their hands ‘fall on the piano’.
Curiosity
A culture of composition will rely on students being curious in their learning. Something I am pursuing more and more is encouraging students to be curious, seeking out new music and discovering fresh ideas. When students are curious, they are more likely to want to explore for themselves, and this ties in with us giving them the space to create and compose.
I also want them to be curious with their own instruments as well as when composing with technology. Improvisation is a form of composition, and we need to encourage our students to come up with melodies and motifs using their own instruments. In class, performing can help students become more confident with improvisation and, in the process, with creating music of their own.
Everyone is a composer
When did you last ask your students if they were composers? We often start a new year asking who plays an instrument, but shouldn't we ask who composes? While I want to move away from an exam board focus, if circa 30 per cent of the course is about composition, then surely it's a question to ask. And if they think they aren't composers, then our job is to make them see themselves as such.
In a culture of composition, everyone needs to be able to engage with the way of life. But clearly in a school setting we teach students who are all at different stages. Some will be fluent with staff notation, others better with chord charts. Students might be able to play by ear, or learn simply by doing. If we are going to embed composition in their lives, then we need to ensure that everyone can compose something. There is no right or wrong, but, instead, the right scaffolding to ensure that all students can succeed.
I am seeing this play out more and more in my own classroom where I need to remember the range of abilities that I have in front of me. If composition is viewed as being notation based and in a purely Western classical style, then some students are going to be put off. But if they are given the tasks and stimuli to create using their individual skills, then we will unlock composing for that student. All students need to be able to succeed with composition and that means scaffolding the tasks we set.
Head in the clouds
I have recently started to realise that a music student with their ‘head in the clouds’ is a good thing. As they ‘daydream’ about music, they are starting to become truly creative. They are thinking deeply about what they want to create and the sounds required to get there. We should be encouraging students to think about their music in this way. While our time is often short, we need to plan for space for this in the curriculum.
This links nicely to cloud-based learning and the array of software that students can now use to create music in the digital cloud. With the help of Soundtrap, Noteflight or Flat.io, students can start their work in school and finish it at home. Cloud technology bridges the gap between the classroom and home, and we can now set even more meaningful composition homework for our students.
Classroom and curriculum
When it comes to school music, it all starts in the classroom. Teaching students about music is our number one aim as teachers. Our classrooms need to live and breathe music and we need to provide a space for students to learn, rehearse and be creative. Curriculum has been a hot topic for the last few years, and we should be constantly reviewing what we teach. Your curriculum is what is right for you, your students and your classroom. But reviewing this allows you to think about what might be missing, and how you might resource that. It might be that you need to invest in some software to allow your students to compose and be creative. Or, maybe, you need to look at your technology to see what needs upgrading. Budgets are always tight, but there are ways of raising money or getting grants – but that is for another article.
My encouragement to you is that you are probably already teaching amazing units, projects and schemes of work. But maybe a quick review will highlight where you could allow more space to develop your culture of composition.
The goal for us all is to get our students creating music. We want them to use composing to help them understand music, but also understand more about themselves. If we strive for a culture of composition then students will turn to composing, not just for their coursework, but for their own musical development and wellbeing. The result will be higher marks at GCSE and A Level. But, more importantly, it will be a school environment that is full of students making music and finding pleasure in pursuing their own sound.
