Beyond Creativity: Composing as a Way to Build a Shared Future

Understandings of the meanings and justifications of musical composition have become broader and more diverse. Such multiple meanings of composing can clearly be seen in Finnish research and the case studies I have referred to in this chapter. As already understood by Tenkku and colleagues in the early days of Finnish composition pedagogy, creative music-making can usher children into new musical landscapes and lower the threshold for stepping into and appreciating previously unfamiliar sonic environments. Musical composition can also be used as an effective and inspiring approach for learning about music. Integrating composition with the teaching of musical structures and stylistic features, for instance, may significantly help the student in understanding the theories and practices of music (e.g., Ahvenjarvi, 2013).

Importantly however, the process of musical composition is not only about getting acquainted with music and inventing musical ideas, but also about exploring, scrutinizing, and playing with sounds and music—indeed, about finding one’s own voice among other voices and taking one’s place as an author, reformer, and innovator of (musical) culture (Ojala & Vakeva, 2013b; Partti, forthcoming). For a growing child or young person, musical composition can therefore offer a significant means of selfexpression and identity construction (Partti & Westerlund, 2013; Ojala, 2017), aesthetic decision-making (Sintonen, 2013), and the development of creative agency (Muhonen, 2016; Juntunen, 2018).

For groups of people, collaborative creative processes may offer a means of communication and constructive interaction (Karjalainen-Vakeva & Nikkanen, 2013) and in this way support a sense of community while preventing social exclusion (Antila 2013). Furthermore, as indicated by an analysis of the pedagogical thinking of several esteemed composer-teachers (Puukka, 2020), musical composition can even contribute to the processes of ethical subjectification, understood here as the effort to exist in and with the world in a responsible, “grown-up” way, to use the terminology of educational theorist Gert Biesta (2017b, p. 17). Similarly, Ojala and Vakeva (2013b) refer to composing as a “practical research process” (p. 10, my translation) and discuss the possibilities that creating music offers for students to “come to terms with the world and with other people” (p. 17, my translation).

These and many other possible meanings of composing are of importance and should not be viewed as mutually exclusive, but rather, situational, interactive, and overlapping. The diverse meanings of composing for both individuals and groups highlight the pedagogical possibilities of composing to promote active cultural participation and spark the desire in students for wanting to come into and remain in dialogue with each other and to explore different ways of being in the world (see, Biesta, 2017a).

The existential opportunities that can be opened up by composing can be regarded as specifically central in a time of growing inequalities, social divisions, and conflicts. A deepening understanding of the various opportunities that composing can offer to students with different starting points and diverse backgrounds also challenges the narrow conceptualizations of musical composition as a way of merely advancing individual creativity or students’ “innovation skills” Instead, musical composition practices can be understood to provide a space for encountering the self and the world and in this way create shared musical spaces where intersubjective responsibility and the building of a shared future are made possible.

References: Ahvenjarvi, S. (2013). Kokemuksia savellystunneista seka improvisoinnista yleisen musiikkitiedon tunneilla. In J. Ojala & L. Vakeva (Eds.), Saveltajaksi kasvattaminen. Pedagogisia nakokulmia musiikin luovaan tekijyyteen (pp. 141-147). Opetushallitus.

Antila, S. 2013. Kertomus lukiomusikaalin saveltamisesta ryhmatyoskentelyna. In J. Ojala & L. Vakeva (Eds.), Saveltajaksi kasvattaminen. Pedagogisia nakokulmia musiikin luovaan tekijyyteen (pp. 99-112). Opetushallitus.

Biesta, G. (2017a). Letting art teach: Art education ‘after’ Joseph Beuys. Artez Press.

Biesta, G. (2017b). The rediscovery of teaching. Routledge.

Burnard, P. (2013). Introduction. In E. Georgii-Hemming, P. Burnard, & S. Holgerson (Eds.), Professional knowledge in music teacher education (pp. 1-15). Routledge.

Ervasti, M. (2013). Musiikillisia sormenjalkia. In J. Ojala & L. Vakeva (Eds.), Saveltajaksi kasvattaminen. Pedagogisia nakokulmia musiikin luovaan tekijyyteen (pp. 113-125). Opetushallitus.