Intermediate and Advanced Level Composing Projects.

Giebelhausen (2013) described a multi-movement project inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. After spending a class listening to and describing the compositional characteristics of Vivaldi’s concertos, students form groups of three to five and plan for a multi-movement work based on weather, with each member of the group responsible for composing one of the movements for the instrumentation of their group. The project is designed to take place over six or seven class periods using approximately 15 minutes per class, with groups performing their compositions at the end of the project.

Theme and Variations (TAV) is a useful technique for developing composers because it provides a secure structural framework, while also providing many opportunities for distinctive musical choices to be made by students. As part of a research project, Chartier (2009) developed a TAV composing project for an eighth-grade orchestra class. Students listened to the TAV in the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony no. 94 and then composed an eight-measure theme in small groups of two or three. Once the theme was composed the groups each composed one or two variations on their themes. Students were required to notate the theme and the variations, and Chartier required that students perform their pieces in higher left-hand positions on their instruments (i.e., not in first position) to align with performance goals.

I have also utilized TAV extensively in composing projects with middle school students (Hopkins, 2013b, 2013c, and 2019). I find that when we ask seventh graders to generate ideas about how a theme can be varied they will generate enough ideas to fill a large chalkboard. I have done projects where students compose individually and others where students compose collaboratively. Both types of projects can be beneficial, but my preference is for the collaborative projects in chamber groups of three to five students. We provide students with an existing theme that they are very familiar with and ask them compose a variation or two. Notation is not required.

I have asked many groups of students (and teachers!) to compose Variations on “America” (“God Save the Queen”) and I am always amazed at the incredible variety of variations that emerge. If we have enough time available, I like to ask each group to compose a pair of contrasting variations. For closure, the simplest option is to have each chamber group perform their variation. A second more complex (but beneficial) option is to help the students write the variation down in music notation and pass out each group’s variation score to everyone and perform the TAV as an orchestra.

Another type of project I have seen in middle school orchestra is composing in chamber music groups to create programmatic music inspired by a story. My colleague, Abigail Alwin, asked her students to create incidental music to be played while the story of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss was read aloud by a narrator. She began the project on Dr. Seuss’s birthday (March 2) and performed the music on Earth Day (April 21). I have described this project in detail elsewhere (Hopkins, 2019) so won’t describe all the procedures here, but I do want to highlight the compositional technique we promoted with the students.

We wanted the seventh-grade students who had been playing their instruments for two years to have a simple composing system for quickly generating interesting sounding ideas. We demonstrated an “additive ostinato” (i.e., looping) approach by layering ostinato patterns on top of each other. I played a very simple 1 measure bass line—a simple rhythmic pattern on the open D string. Abby added a two-measure cello pattern on top of my bass line. These types of patterns are often referred to as “riffs” or “licks” among rock and jazz musicians. We asked a student to add a simple violin pattern on top of that, and we had something that sounded pretty cool! We had the entire orchestra split into three groups and created more loops together. Abby referred to these loops as “motors.” These motors became the engines that drove the compositional process. The students realized how straightforward and easy it is to generate ideas this way. When we split them into chamber groups to write music for their part of the story, all of the groups spontaneously created really great ideas. This type of project is really wonderful because there is so much that can be learned in terms of musicianship, literacy, dramatic import when narrating, and timing in performance.

Advanced Level Composing Projects.Hamilton (2013) developed a project for students to learn how to create simple accompaniments when presented with a lead sheet containing only melody and chord symbols. Over the course of three 45-minute sessions, students learned how to read and interpret chord symbols and then created their own harmonized arrangement for a familiar melody. As the sessions progressed, the students were introduced to rhythmic, voicing, and embellishment concepts for enhancing the arrangement.

I observed a high school orchestra chamber group composing project that became the basis for one of my research studies (Hopkins, 2015). The teacher would do the project in May, after the final orchestra concert of the year, but before he had to prepare his orchestra to perform at graduation. He asked students to select themselves into groups of three, four, or five, and create a two to four-minute chamber piece for their group to perform. Students were required to perform on their orchestra instrument.

The composition did not need to be scored in traditional notation but had to be documented in some form. The teacher gave the students considerable flexibility in their approach, but he requested that the piece have a harmonic structure, have a conceptual idea, or a programmatic idea. Each group was required to make a video-recorded performance of their composition, and the musical quality of a group’s performance (e.g., rhythmic precision, intonation, tone quality) was part of the rubric assessment criteria. The range of compositional approaches and resulting pieces was very impressive.

References: Benham, S. J., et al. (2011). ASTA string curriculum: Standards, goals and learning sequences for essential skills and knowledge in K-12 string programs. American String Teachers Association.

Berg, M. H. (1997). Social construction of musical experience in two high school chamber music ensembles. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University.

Biasini, A. (1971). MMCP interaction (2nd ed.). Media Materials.

Bolden, B. (2007). Collaborative class composing. Canadian Music Educator, 49(1), 44.

Burland, K., & Davidson, J. W. (2001). Investigating social processes in group musical composition. Research Studies in Music Education, 16, 46-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103x01016 0010901