For the last few years, I’ve started to incorporate more improvisation and composition into my performing ensemble classes. Most of my efforts have been pretty clunky at best; I was learning these skills alongside my students and I didn’t really know how to teach any of it. My students were not excited about it, either. I’ve had some students tell me that any day we don’t do improv is a good day. Improvisation and composition is new and intimidating, and most of my students just wanted to read music.
I kept trying, though, and every time we did something I got a little bit better at it. After a few years of trial and error, attending conference sessions, talking to other teachers, and learning on my own, I have come up with a system of creating a class composition that is super simple, easy, and fun. My kids actually really love doing this project, and the best part is that we end up with a composition that we perform at our concert.
If you’re interested in trying this with your own students, here’s the basic outline of what I do with my students.
Teach the melody
I start with a melody that already exists, like a folk tune or Christmas song. I try to choose a melody that is short and simple, preferably with a lot of repetition. If the students are familiar with it, that’s even better.
You can either teach the melody by rote or give them the melody written out. I’ve done both with good success. If this is your first time and your students aren’t used to learning things by ear, I recommend giving them the written music, but I actually prefer to teach them the melody without written notation. I have found it helps them play better in tune and they are better able to pick out the patterns and theory concepts that we’ll be discussing throughout this project.
Add a rhythm part
Once they’ve learned the melody, we experiment with adding rhythm or percussion to it. We start by talking about the time signature and what the strong and weak beats are. Then we talk about what kinds of rhythms would fit into that time signature, emphasize the strong beats, and complement the rhythm of the melody. I have the students come up with some example rhythms and we try to play a few of them with the melody to see what works best.
I teach string orchestra only, so we don’t have percussionists in our classes. Instead, we focus on body percussion (clapping, stomping, etc.) and we experiment with different ways of using our instruments for percussion, like knocking on the back, slapping the strings, or tapping different parts of the instrument.
Add a bass line
Now that we have a melody and rhythm part, it’s time to start adding harmony. I start with just the bass line. To do this, first I ask the students what key the melody is in. If they have the written music, they can just look at the key signature. If we’ve learned the melody by ear, they’ll have to look for clues in the melody, like what sharps or flats are in the melody, what note the melody starts and ends on, and what notes get repeated a lot.
Once we’ve established the key, I move to the circle of fifths and point to the key. Say the melody is in the key of D. One the circle of fifths, the note to the left of D is G and the note to the right of D is A. Those are going to be the notes that most likely will work the best with this melody. (If you want to get more into the theory of it, those are the I, IV, and V chords in the key of D Major.) I explain that most measures of the melody only use one chord, then we go through the melody one measure at a time and play those three notes to see which one sounds the best with the melody.
As we do this, I either write the bass line notes on the whiteboard or have the students write them down on a piece of staff paper. We’ll be coming back to these notes a lot, so they need to have them written down somewhere where they won’t lose them.
After we figure out a bass line that works with the melody, I split the class in half and have half of them play the melody and half play the bass line so they can hear what it sounds like. Then we start adding rhythmic variety to the bass line. Playing whole notes for every measure is boring; what can we do instead? We try a few different suggestions and see how each one changes the character of the melody.
Introduce triads
With the key signature and bass line in place, it’s really easy to introduce triads. I start with the bass line we’ve written down and we just build snowmen on each bass note. I don’t go into the whole theory explanation of major thirds and minor thirds – that doesn’t matter right now. Just get them used to building snowmen and staying in the key signature. If you want to explain more about triads next time you do this project, go for it. Right now the point is to give them a working understanding of what harmonies will sound good almost every time.
After you’ve written in the triads, you can experiment with different ways to use these triads with the melody. You can hold them out for the whole measure as block chords. You can play boom chucks: one section plays the root of the chord on beat one while another section plays the top two notes of the triad on beat two. You can break up the triad and play arpeggio patterns. Take some time to let the students experiment with different ways to use the triads so they know they have options.
Map out the composition
We now have all the building blocks to create a simple arrangement of this song. It’s time to map out the composition. As a class, discuss how many verses of the song your arrangement should have. My students also like to write out a chart of energy over time. This is a great opportunity to talk about how to increase or decrease the energy in a composition. You can talk about dynamics, texture, articulations, tempo, etc.
Once we’ve come up with an overarching vision of what our composition will be, I divide the class into small groups and assign each group a part of the composition. I make sure each group has at least one of each instrument and preferably one person from each section, because those students will be responsible for teaching their part of the composition to the rest of their section.
I give the students a couple of days to work on this together, then I have the small groups perform for the class. If needed, we give them some feedback on what they’ve come up with and make some adjustments. Then they all go back to their sections and teach each other the different parts of the composition.
Some students will get super into this and start to take over. Make sure you set it up so every student has some say in the final product. This will be most successful if it’s a group effort, not just a couple of students doing all the work.
Add an introduction, ending, and transitions as needed
At that point, we put everything together and try playing through the whole composition. Sometimes it works out as is, but sometimes the sections don’t flow together very well and we need to add some transitions between verses. Your class might also decide they want some sort of introduction or ending to make it feel more complete.
My advice here is to KEEP IT SIMPLE!! An effective transition between verses can be as simple as holding out a block chord for an extra measure, or doing boom chucks on a tonic triad for two measures. You may need to make some executive decisions here to keep things moving.
Practice and Perform
You now have a complete, performable composition. It may be super basic and simple, but that’s perfect. Your students have learned how to learn a melody by ear, how to figure out time signatures and key signatures, how to write a rhythm part, how to use the circle of fifths, how to write out harmonies, and how to combine all those things into a complete piece of music. That’s a ton of music theory, and they learned it in a way that’s easy, fun, and applicable to real life. They’ve learned skills they can continue to build on for the rest of their lives.
I highly recommend that you add this composition to your next performance and that you explain to the audience what it is and what you learned while doing it. It may be a bit clunky and rough, but that’s not the point. By performing it, you’re telling your kids that they can create something that’s worth showing to the world. My kids have been so proud of this project; performing it was one of the highlights of the year for them.
Want to hear what one of these class compositions sounds like? I have included a couple of recordings from our concerts so you can get an idea of what this might end up like.
If you decide to do this project, let me know how it goes in the comments! I’d love to hear what your experience is.