Preparing Young Composers for Collegiate Study

When I was a freshman in college, my advisor met with me in the first week of school. He asked me a great many questions about my background as a musician—which I quickly came to realize was not much, in his opinion. One of the questions he asked me was “Do you play piano?” I had taken a few lessons at around age ten with a woman from our church. If we had not moved, I would have continued those lessons because I really enjoyed piano and I liked my teacher. But we did move, and circumstances changed as they often do in life.

I answered his question with “no,” and his pragmatic reply,—“then you will never be able to succeed at being a composer”— was burned white hot into my memory. I clearly recall the moment, the look of his office, the sound of the carillon starting on campus, the embarrassment rising within me, and my immediate reaction of feeling that I should not have the nerve to even try this thing—this composing music. All I had done up until this moment was arrange music for my friends. I had bounced into his office so excited about my composition lessons and classes, but I left his office embarrassed that I was not already better at the very things I wanted to learn.

This moment is still so easy for me to recall that writing a description brings tears to my eyes. I look back on that moment now and know some things. I know that I did become a composer. I know that this advisor had a narrow viewpoint and was wrong about what someone can or cannot do in their own life. I also know that his statement pushed me in a way that likely caused me to do better than I ever would have otherwise in my life, whether to spite him or because it ignited a drive in myself, or both. I know now that every student who wants to be a composer needs me to be a different kind of teacher for them. Some need me to drive them, some need me to stay out of their way, most need me to cheer them on. All of them need me to listen and to correct them.

They need me to provide that correction and criticism in a manner that they can receive it. Finally, I know that my advisor (who was also a faculty member) taught all of his students using methods that did not change. He did not understand the value in developing varying paths to a goal for different individuals. Because of my experience with him, I am a different teacher for each of my students as they need me to be. It’s a wonder I’m not as mad as Alice’s Hatter.

I am going to start with several of the ways I have worked with high school students throughout my twenty-one years at the Interlochen Arts Academy. I will present what has and has not worked, in the hope that it helps you to nurture a young composer. I will refer to both my experience teaching private composition students and my elective class for non-composition majors. My topics will all tie back to compositional craft and will include confidence level, learning to edit, the daily discipline of composing, learning what constitutes composing, how to work smarter, score study, and some of the challenges they all face along with the strengths they already possess. We will look at the topic of college/conservatory applications through the lens of developing a stronger artist. The goal is for schools to see the students’ artistic ability and vision expressed through their own words and compositions.

I know now that my younger seventeen-year-old self, sitting in that office, had the tools necessary to learn composition, because I had the most important ones in spades: the desire and determination to write. It was a passion for me, but it took me many years to believe in myself again after that moment.

It is the process of learning how to work as a composer—practicing a daily routine, learning to study scores, making observations, becoming a critical thinker about music, and learning to see and work with their strengths and limitations—that prepares a student for composition at the college or conservatory level. One does not have to be a composer or composition teacher to help students do what I will suggest, although obviously it helps. The knowledge of how much time it takes to compose, edit, rewrite, prepare score, and make parts is critical toward helping students realize all the elements of this process. It also helps to realize that the act of writing—whether words or notes—is a very naked act. The composer is putting their artistic vision out to the world to be accepted or possibly rejected. Imagine a situation where someone else is describing your creative effort and what you would hope to hear as feedback. Keeping that situation in mind will aid you in giving feedback that your students can accept and internalize.