Student with Advanced Composition Skills
Found in: Accompaniment, Composition & Improvisation, Students with Prior Experience
Andrea B., Canada
I am a new teacher; I started my first lessons this month. I have a student, 15 years old, who has been composing his own music for quite some time. I know I have plenty to teach him in other areas, but I have no idea how to help him with composition. There is only one other student in his class; she also has some experience composing, but I don’t think she is advanced as he is.
I just went through the composition training again and I don’t know if there is anything in there that will help him get better. I don’t see any advanced composition training besides the recorded call in the audio library, which I remember being very good and I will listen to again. When we
get into accompaniment it seems like that will open some doors. It seems like he has mostly composed in more of a classical style; Accompaniment will help a little with that style because he will learning theory, but it seems like it will be limited.
So my questions are:
- Should I have him do the simpler composition exercises suggested in the training?
- If I start him with these simpler projects, what do I do next?
- Are there resources for more advanced composition?
- I know quite a lot about music theory, but I haven’t composed much myself and I haven’t tried to teach theory as a means to composition.
- Has anyone done anything like that and can give me some pointers?
It is so great to have a resource of other wonderful teachers to turn to and be inspired by.
Kylie S., NSW, Australia
I really believe that having a good chord basis is a fantastic doorway into improvisation and composition. Getting a feel for the I-IV-V, and later, adding other chords and experiencing how they work together.
To add to Andrea’s question, would I be right in thinking that improvisation is really a forerunner to composition? To make a composition, you really need to be able to create – and we learn to create through improvising.
With my beginner students, I am focusing more on the improvisation process rather than the outcome of a composition. Any thoughts?
Thanks for opening up the discussion Andrea as this is an area I think some of us are a little daunted by.