Creative Composition in the Studio Q&A

The following are the questions which were asked during the Creative Composition in the Studio webinar with Wynn-Anne Rossi.

Can you start the Creative Composition Toolbox with any book and will the students be able to understand the concepts? I have a transfer student who is at an early intermediate level. I hate to have to start her at Book 1 if I can.

Yes! Creative Composition Toolbox builds on the skills that students are learning at the various levels of piano study, so you could start an early intermediate student with Book 3 or 4 if the earlier levels seem too simple for them .

The skill levels of the books in this series are as follows. You can click on any title to take a closer look at the concepts explored.

• Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 1 - Early Elementary
• Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 2 - Elementary
• Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 3 - Late Elementary
• Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 4 - Early Intermediate
• Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 5 - Intermediate
• Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 6 - Late Intermediate

What age do you start composition in your studio? Do you help young students notate their ideas?

Start them right away with little seeds of creativity. Use the keyboard to have students tell you about your day or create a thunderstorm. Even a 5 year old can be creating things on the keys from the very first lesson.

Bring composition in pretty quickly. If students are able to write their alphabet letters, they are ready to write a composition down.

It’s a little harder, honestly, to start students later, but it is never too late! Older students will often be a lot more intimidated than a 6 year old. If a student starts at 6, they just think it’s normal, but older students can find the process daunting.

As students get older, it can be more difficult for them to experiment. For older students, provide more guidelines to get them started. Fear of a blank page can cause freezing, so give students a small box to work with at first and expand a little at a time.

What about having students improvise on a rhythm based on a key or mode and 3 or 4 chords? That's what some jazz teachers use.

Absolutely! There are so many ways to approach this. I often let the students choose a 4-chord repeatable pattern based on their own favorite chords. It's important to emphasize the use of rhythm and the importance of rhythmic repetition.

Could you please tell a little more about using scales as building blocks?

Ground students in the major and the minor with primary chords. For example, if you’re in C major, you have all of the C major notes to work with on top of the primary chords. All of that can lead into melodies and patterns.

Then think of other modes. Any pattern of notes is a scale, and any scale has a certain number of chords that come out of it. Students can even create their own scales and chords and rhythmic ideas.

What about creating songs from other cultures of the families or an Era, like minor Renaissance songs, using similar rhythms?

Different scales from different parts of the world and different musical cultures are great to explore, and bringing them into the studio is fantastic.

What about beginning adult students? My oldest is 71 and he is nervous about composing.

It can be harder to start as an adult. Begin with improvising rather than composing, even if they are a beginning student. Get them messing around with something as simple as a latin improvisation (Am - G - F - E) or Heart and Soul chords. Have them do ten repetitions of the chord progression and do something different each time.

After spending some time improvising, lead them into composition. Creativity is good for every age and it empowers us to express ourselves and share a little of ourselves with others.

What if a student freezes and simply is resistant to exploring imaginative ideas?

Get on the piano with them to help them feel safe and like it’s fun. Kids learn by playing. If it feels like an expectation that you need to perform and do well, they can freeze, but if it feels like play, it can loosen them up. Laugh through it and have fun. Improvise together for a short period of time in each lesson, and work them incrementally to where they feel safe. It needs to feel fun. Avoid too much notation.

I love your idea of a collaborative ensemble project! Do you find that the students need to play those other instruments (violin, drums, etc.) or it doesn't matter? When you have students compose different instrumental parts, do those students need to know much about the instrument or should they just compose as is and let the software play it back for them?

Collaborative Ensemble Project: One student writes a part then passes it to the next student who writes a part to go along with the first then passes it to the next, etc. At the end, they perform the piece as an ensemble.

Great question about the different instruments. Of course, it's best if students can work with a live performer. If they have a friend who plays the flute, they should compose for the flute! The computer can deceive us. So it's much better if a student can compose for a real person, but if that isn't an option, the student should certainly work within the range of the instrument. A Google search can provide that. Looking at simple scores for that instrument can also help. Playback on a computer is fine for checking the writing, but it won't sound like that in a live performance.

There are many different chord progressions. In my own experience of improvisation, the piece wraps up naturally in one of common chord progression. If introduced too early, would it be a restriction?

Certainly the primary chords can be very restricting. I rarely use them in my own writing. However, some hesitant students benefit from a small box. I encourage more adventurous students to branch into other chords, including altered chords outside the key signature. I also teach that the chords come from the mode of choice. Thus, a whole tone scale produces very different chords than a major scale. This can create very interesting sounds for improvisation, especially if the student comes up with an original scale.