Composing Project Spring 2021

In Which I Do A PSA & Discuss My Studio’s Composing Process This Year

Every year Piano Central Studios has a big Composing Contest that my students are invited to participate in, and I try to have several students participate. In years past, I had everyone participate. This year, though, I wanted to be more focused in teaching composing, so I decided to only have second year students and older participate.

Excluding two overachieving first year students who surprised me with semi-completed pieces of their own, and my oldest teenage student (who wants to become a video game composer), I had seven students to try some new composing ideas with this past spring. Seven little apprentices to do my bidding. (Cue maniacal laughter as I steeple my hands beneath a single bare lightbulb)

In my experience, the idea of composing is often accompanied by a bright excitement, as though there’s a neon sign above the teacher flashing COMPOSING! EXCITING! NO PROBLEM!

Here’s my PSA: it can be challenging to teach what it is essentially creative writing on an instrument.

Don’t believe me?

First, there has to be a musical idea. Then they have to remember that idea. It has to be sung over and over, played again and again, and then written down so that both of you don’t forget it. Sometimes you might have to reteach the student what they did in previous lessons because they literally don’t remember it. Second, they have to not only remember their original idea, but also have more musical ideas, too. And you as the teacher have to help them keep track of those ideas. You have to take videos of them, help them write it down, and then also help them generate more ideas. Once they have it all together, these ideas need to be written out in a score, which is mostly the teacher’s responsibility because students are not well versed enough in writing a score.Third, these are opportunities for teaching expression, dynamics, and articulation, so you have to make sure you do that, too. And I haven’t even mentioned rhythm, meter, whether or not they can play a melody with both hands, switching between the hands, or adding a pedal.

If it’s a competition, they have to be able to do a recording of it, too.

The point is: it’s overwhelming. I hated it my first year, and maybe enjoyed the process once or twice during the second year (thanks to my teenage students). But this year I realized I was trying too hard, and I needed to simplify the process. Otherwise I was going to be sitting there with more than one student flitting their hands back and forth across a keyboard while saying, “I don’t know what to do!”

I noticed that Leila Viss over at 88keys likes to do what she calls cookie cutter pieces with her students. I decided to use some of her ideas this year. You can read more about her work here: https://www.leilaviss.com/store-home/cookie-cutter-composing?rq=cookie%20cutter%20composing

(Thanks Leila! You’re the best!)

To start off, I put my students into two groups of composing. They were either using:

1. Pre-written rhythms
2. Mother Goose rhymes.

Leila Viss talks about removing the obstacle of choice, so that it is easier for students to being composing. With that in mind, I presented two parameters to the Rhythm Composers and Mother Goose Composers:

1. Pre-determined penta scales.
2. Pre-determined textures: parallel motion playing, tonic/dominant whole notes in the left hand with right hand melody, or a combination of the two.

The Rhythm Composers were presented them with a set of sight reading cards that they had already played. Most of my students are in Piano Safari, and we use the sight reading cards every week. The students picked two sight reading cards that they liked, and then chose a pentascale. This was followed by a week of messing around with the rhythms and writing in any note patterns they liked. (Note: we did not use manuscript paper for this, just regular paper or the note cards themselves).

I was saved from having to do as much writing for them, and they embraced the challenge. The benefits of the Rhythm Composers were:

• Easy organization and execution
• Pieces were 16-20 measures long, with variations on the chosen rhythms
• Pieces used question and answer phrases (and it was very easy to teach this idea)
• Interesting melodies within a pentascale
• Secure student performances (they’d played those rhythms so many times!)
• Patterned introductions and endings could be added on easily.

For the Mother Goose Composers, I brought in books with pictures and rhymes that I had marked as options. This was the most experimental part of the composing project for me. My thought behind it was that students love rewriting songs, and often ask me if we can come up with lyrics for pieces that don’t have any.

Once we had the rhymes chosen and their pentascale picked out, I printed the words on paper, with a lot of room above and below for right hand and left hand parts. Students wrote in note names, and tried out different patterns for a few weeks before they were satisfied. This system also made it easier for me because I could take a picture of their work at the end of the lesson, and then send them home to practice it. I spent a lot less time writing notes in MuseScore.

The benefits of the Mother Goose Composers:

• A wealth of ideas already existed within the text, including a rhythm in the lyrics.
• Text painting came up frequently.
• Pieces had predetermined phrases.
• Secure student performances (they remembered their tunes!)
• Patterned introductions and endings could be added on easily.
• Fantastic titles to inspire students: Little Miss Tucket, Kadiddle, Tabitha Twitchit, or Babbity Bouster Bumble Bee.
• Question and answer phrases were easy to explain.

A Word On Texture:

My students had three textures to choose from: parallel motion, tonic/dominant whole notes in the left hand with right hand melody, or a combination of both. This eased the process considerably. A lot of them had already played those kinds of textures in Piano Safari, which made it easy to explain. They have all since noticed those textures more readily, and there’s a deeper level of confidence when playing them. After all, they’ve composed in that texture, too.

Major Takeaways:

Giving the students as much structure as possible was a great way to get them started. Helping them decide a texture and pentascale at the beginning made for a lot less stress on their part (and mine).

I loved using rhymes as a way to get into the composing process. I’d like to try that again with small rhymes, particularly for seasonal events, like Valentine’s Day or Christmas. Copying romantic sounding textures or finding “Christmas sounds” on the piano sounds like a good way to encourage active listening.

I am so thankful for Leila Viss’s ideas and her willingness to share. It definitley helped ease the overwhelming feeling of composing. It was actually fun to show up for those lessons, and, of course, that’s what we all want.