Preparations for our Composition Recital

Dear Students,

I've talked to each of you about our end-of-the-summer recital - it will be centred around you and your compositions! Here are some of the specifics our our studio composition goals:

• We'll be creating lots of compositions during the summer to help us get more comfortable with the idea of composing.
• You will each be choosing one of your compositions to perform at the end of the summer, as well as another piece that you choose.

So how do we start composing?

We'll be talking a lot about this during your lessons - don't worry! I won't leave you to struggle through this on your own. We'll be working through the process of creating and writing down music together. To get you started, you might want to think about the following things....

• Let's start with a rhythm! 
• Sometimes, you can start your piece by thinking of an interesting rhythm, and then continue by adding notes to that rhythm.

• Start with an image and try describing it with music
• You might start composing with a picture in your head. That picture can be anything: an animal, an event, a memory, a place....if you're stuck, try drawing a picture first!

• Do you want your music to tell a story?
• If so, think about what story you'd like to tell, and how you can use your knowledge about music to help the listener "see" that story when you play your piece.

• What notes will you use?
• You've all been working hard at learning notes: their sounds, their keys, and what they look like on paper. Now is your chance to play with those notes to create a masterpiece!
• Composers write music in different ways. You can start by writing down a set of notes, and then playing them on the piano and tweaking them, or you can start by playing with sounds at the piano first. Do what feels best for you!
• If we have been talking about different types of chords in our lessons (ex/ tonics and dominant sevenths), this would be a great time for you to try using those chords to colour your pieces.

Composing music is a great way to express yourself, and it can be a lot of fun. We'll be working together in our lessons to create your compositions, and we'll be talking about these ideas as we start working on translating your ideas into music and onto paper.

Here's to a creative summer!