Why You Should Compose

When I started out teaching music I did the usual things: I taught people how to play the instrument at a level appropriate to their skills and prior experience. As time went on I started to incorporate other elements. Along with the usual technique, etudes and repertoire, I started to teach ear skills like interval and chord recognition. Most of my teaching was in a conservatory or university setting so I could depend on the other courses to teach general theory, ear-training and history. But in the last few years I have been teaching privately and have had the opportunity to think about music education without too many preconceptions.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the missing element in music education is composition. I have been predisposed toward composing as long as I have been a musician, but I think it has enormous benefits for everyone who makes music. I have an adult student that I have been working with for a few years and in the last couple of years we have worked through a college text on counterpoint and are currently nearly finished the bible of harmony, Aldwell and Schachter. Along the way, I have encouraged my student to do some composition. One assignment was to parody a Mozart minuet; another was to write a song in the style of John Lennon c. 1965. As his musical understanding grew, he started to come up with his own ideas. Here is a rough sketch for a piece for guitar solo he is working on:

Click to enlarge

Sure, it's not Mozart, but it is a very promising theme. And here is the surprising part: it is a better piece than quite a few I have seen published. Is he a composer born? No. But that really isn't the point. He is creating music from scratch! And not bad stuff at that. I am more and more convinced that composition is the missing component in music education. I really think that nearly everyone can learn to compose and that they can do it at whatever level of proficiency they are at. Apart from the indisputable benefits of having a whole avenue of expression open to you, there are all sorts of less direct benefits. When you do a little composing yourself, you start to see music differently. You look at a piece of music and see what the composer was up to. You see it from an active point of view. Composing activates your mind to look at things a little differently. You develop critical faculties that you wouldn't otherwise. For example, as you study harmony and try writing your own harmony you become much more sensitive to how other composers handle harmony. In the case of some composers, you are awestruck at what amazing harmonic structures they created (*cough* Bach! *cough*). In the case of others you might think, "hmmm, now that doesn't really work, does it?"

You don't have to spend years studying counterpoint and harmony either (though I would recommend it). You can start right where you are. You can write a piece with one chord and a few lyrics. After all, that is the foundation of the Lennon song "Tomorrow Never Knows". You can write a song with three chords. You can write an instrumental piece with nothing but a rhythm and clapping.

Composition doesn't have to be complex! And after you create your first piece and ask yourself, "now how can I do my next one better?" --that is when it gets interesting...