Composition Corner

I know there are a number of states that have composition contests around this time of year.  Last year I was privileged to judge the Texas MTA contest with Melody Bober and David Karp. This year, I get to hear and evaluate the students in Indiana. So I thought it might be appropriate to share some articles about how to teach composition or help […]

One of the first harmonizing activities I like to do with all levels of students is to harmonize and re-harmonize a familiar folk tune.  I particularly like to do this with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as it harmonizes with traditional I, IV and V7 harmony as well as harmonizes with many secondary chords and seventh chords.  Here is how I introduce it, sometimes combining […]

There’s now a pretty extensive index of how to work on composing melodies with your students.  Check out the Index of Composition Corner Articles for lots of ideas! Several of you have asked about how to proceed with harmony, so I wanted to write some posts about this.

It might be helpful just to begin listing all of the things you could teach in […]

Recently, I published an Index of Dollars and Sense posts so that you can quickly find the areas that interest you.  I’m getting more and more questions about teaching composition, so I thought it might be helpful to also post an index of the Composition Corner posts.  In addition to seeing them below with annotations, you can also see these articles here.

Keep […]

I wanted to revive the Composition Corner Q & A segment since I’m getting all kinds of questions via email and Facebook.  Recently, Becky asked me on the ComposeCreate FB page:

I just finished working with my students and submitting their compositions to our state composition festival (Indiana). Three of my elementary students composed pieces where I had to help them with their more complex […]