Musical Composition in Upper Secondary Schools. Musical Composition in Extracurricular Music Education

The General Upper Secondary Education Syllabus highlights the importance of providing students with opportunities to “experiment bravely with new and even uncommon musical ideas, also together with others” (FNAE, 2019, p. 350, my translation). In this recently reformed curriculum (implemented in August 2021) the development of active musical agency and creative thinking are among the general aims of music instruction in upper secondary education (students aged 16 to 19 years old). Creative music-making is understood in terms of exploratory processes that require time and peace for thinking, with music education offering students possibilities to find novel solutions and use their imaginations (FNAE, 2019).

Music educator Sakari Antila (2013) writes about his experience facilitating the process of writing a musical. The initiative for the project had come from the students and Antila, who at that point of his career as a music educator felt keen to challenge himself, decided to give it a go. The project provided opportunities for multifaceted creativity, as it integrated music into various other areas of expression, such as writing, acting, and visual arts. It also required courage from both the teacher and students. Antila was not particularly experienced in facilitating composition and had been, in fact, somewhat reluctant toward the idea of teaching composition in schools.

His experiences of composing were personal and did not seem to fit with group-based school activities. Nevertheless, he challenged himself and his students to explore something new with the desire to witness risk-taking and “leaps into the unknown” (Antila, 2013, p. 101, my translation). Students composed in small groups formed according to their interests. At the end of each composition session, students had the chance to share their ideas with other groups and “together agonize over the unbearable difficulty of composing,” as described by Antila (2013, p. 103, my translation). After finishing the composition phase, songs were arranged for the instruments available, and practiced together for the performance.

The role of the teacher was to offer guidance, advice, and instruction, but also (often above all) to inspire and keep everyone on board. Reflecting on the experience from his own perspective, Antila does not try to hide the difficulties he faced as a teacher facilitating the large-scale project that took him firmly outside his core areas of experience and expertise as a music educator. Yet, the benefits of the experience clearly exceeded the hardships, as it helped him find a new angle to musical composition, to view it as a form of playing, venturing, “and even messing around” (ibid., p. 99, my translation)—indeed, as a creative practice available for everyone.

Musical Composition in Extracurricular Music Education.In addition to general music education in schools there are various opportunities for extracurricular music education in Finland (see, Korpela et al., 2010). While instruction in schools is offered free of charge, one can receive affordable instruction in multiple arts, such as dance, music, theater, and visual arts, in the institutes of basic education in the arts. An extensive network of music institutes provides music education for children, young people, and adults. A network of music institutes is spread across the country and the majority receive substantial funding from the government, which makes studying in music institutes more accessible.

Instruction in music institutes follows the objectives and key contents as stated in the National Core Curriculum for the General and Advanced Syllabi for Basic Education in the Arts (FNAE 2018). Instruction in music institutes is goal-oriented, advancing from one level to another, and aims to provide the students with opportunities for selfexpression as well as a basis for vocational studies in higher music education, if they so wish. According to this curricular document, the task of music instruction in extracurricular music education “is to create the preconditions for a good relationship with music and for a lifelong interest in music” (ibid., p. 48).

Students are supported in the development of their aesthetic, creative thinking, and social skills. Alongside performing and listening skills, such as singing or playing an instrument, as well as aural and structural awareness, the instruction aims to “guide pupils to musical expression [and] to encourage pupils to produce their own musical ideas and solutions” (ibid., p. 49). Composition, arranging, and improvisation are included among the main objectives of tuition of the advanced syllabus. Moreover, in many music institutes in Finland, it is now (or in the near future) possible to have composition as one’s main subject of study instead of a musical instrument.

Although composition has a more central role in the recently introduced curriculum, many music institutes have already offered composition classes for some time. As described by the Finnish composer and music educator Sanna Ahvenjarvi (2013), the composition classes may take place individually or in small groups, depending on the needs and interests of the students. The starting point for composition can be almost anything: an improvisation that the student hopes to learn to notate or a melody that the student has composed for their own instrument and wishes to extend into a piece for an ensemble, for instance. Together with the teacher it is possible to continue to further explore the aesthetic possibilities and acquire new skills in composition.

Although music institutes have traditionally specialized in teaching (mostly) Western classical music, there are now an increasing number of opportunities to receive instruction in pop/jazz and folk musics. This can also be seen in composition pedagogy. As expressed by Ahvenjarvi (2013), when initiating a new composition, it is the student who sets the stylistic framework: “My task as a teacher is to help the student keep the composition as stylistically coherent as possible—uniform, as it were” (p. 142, my translation). The Finnish composer Pasi Lyytikainen (2020) also emphasizes the importance of respecting students’ musical inventions and decisions. Although the role of the teacher is to teach the student how to edit, improve on, and proceed with their musical ideas, this should always follow the principle of appreciation and openness, viewing all of the student’s musical inventions as “potentially containing] elements of artistic value” (ibid., n.p.).

Ahvenjarvi (2013) reports her journey as a composition teacher who initially only taught the students taking composition classes to her recent practice of integrating composition, arrangement, and improvisation into all her teaching, including piano, music theory, and solfege. Like Ahvenjarvi, many other Finnish music educators have noticed the opportunities composition offers particularly in the teaching of theoretical subjects in music institutes (see, e.g., Ilomaki, 2013; Kuoppamaki, 2015; Klami, 2020). In Finland, music theory and solfege are taught as a separate subject, most often in a course called Basics of Music, (BoM, Musiikin perusteet). According to the music educator and researcher Anna Kuoppamaki (2015), recent years have been marked by efforts to reform the BoM course to better correspond to the overarching curricular aims of “nurturing students’ lifelong relationship with music, and the possibilities for self-expression in and through music” (ibid., p. 29).

Integrating composition and improvisation in the BoM course offers indispensable opportunities for music educators looking for more creative and hands-on approaches to their teaching of music theory. Ahvenjarvi (2013) illustrates how utilizing atonal harmonies and novel instrument playing techniques in improvisation has offered an easy access point for students to contemporary art music and new aesthetic landscapes. Composition and improvisation have also significantly contributed to the development of students’ interaction skills and group coherence (ibid.). Inventing one’s own rhythmic patterns or compositions helps in building bridges between theory and practice and brings the elements of play and creativity into the BoM lessons, as pointed out by Kuoppamaki (2015).

Although the central role of composition in the recently reformed core curriculum for basic education in the arts has received an excited response, it has also brought up a number of questions in many music institutes. One of the questions has to do with the challenge of recruiting music educators with the competence of providing goal-oriented composition instruction. As pointed out by the Finnish composer and composition teacher Markku Klami (2020), it may be feasible to divide introductory composition education into two portions: composition coaching and composition teaching.

He suggests that the former with its aim of creative activities and musical explorations could be facilitated by competent music educators and take place mostly in group tuition situations; whereas the latter, which refers to broader and more systematic composition studies, would ideally be taught by a professional composer in one-on-one tuition situations. Time will tell what kind of solutions the Finnish music institutes will come up with and what implications their choices might have for the higher education of music teachers and composers.