Composition in Music Teacher Preparation: Levels of Curricular Commitment

Pre-service and practicing teachers acknowledge the value of composition while simultaneously lamenting their lack of preparation to lead creative activities in their classrooms and rehearsal halls (Randles & Smith, 2012; Stringham, Thornton, & Shevock, 2015). To capitalize on existing belief and earnest interest, music teacher- educators can design meaningful opportunities for music educators to develop new skills. To maximize teaching and learning potentials, teachers must: 1) have direct personal experiences with music composition, 2) establish a foundation of pedagogical knowledge derived from deconstructing their experiences within composition activities, and 3) participate in an active composition community comprised of professional composers, educators, and students. Composition pedagogies developed within these structures foster the pairing of personal foundations with professional skills.

One and Not Done. Curriculum design and implementation is a balancing act. Music teacher-educators face a complicated challenge when called upon to make decisions involving content, time allocations, and preparation to teach material that may be new to them. Given the competing nature of these tasks, some faculty choose to designate a single day within an undergraduate course to consider composition in a specific setting or with a particular age group. Offerings for practicing teachers might take the form of conference sessions, day-long professional development workshops, or even brief and intensive summer courses.

These approaches have some merit, but also invite concern. While undergraduates may spend a single class addressing composition pedagogy, this experience is insufficient for the creation of confidence with the topic (Piazza & Talbot, 2021). Perhaps even more concerning is the possibility that students’ limited time on topic leads them to infer that composition is not really that important. Such inference would reveal an unfortunate hidden curriculum.

Practitioners experience a similar time-based phenomenon. When professional education is measured in hours—often just single day on a topic—teachers do not experience the ongoing development and support needed to take new learning successfully into practice (Wei, Darling-Hammond, & Adamson, 2010). Even longer workshops may offer similar results. Hickey & Schmidt (2019) tracked teacher implementation of composition and improvisation activities following a pedagogy workshop and found that while the intention to implement creative activities increased immediately following the event, intention and implementation declined at six weeks, six months, and nine months, respectively.

It is possible to design meaningful professional engagements for both pre-service and in-service teachers. Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner (2017) identified seven features of professional development as positively influencing teacher knowledge and practice: focus on content, active learning, support for collaboration, models of effective practice, coaching and expert support, feedback and reflection, and sustained duration (pp. 4-16). These features were applied across a series of summer courses within a tri-level program titled Composing Together.

This program was initiated at the University of Southern Maine Dr. Alfred and D. Suzi Osher School of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queen’s College/CUNY in 2007. Teachers in these programs studied composition through direct engagement in composing activities and took applied lessons with professional composers. Teachers of the same grade level or content area focus collaborated to develop lessons and units with the intent of implementation in the following school year.

Teachers were provided feedback on their compositions and their lessons by course instructors, professional composers, and their peers. Additionally, teachers were encouraged to contact the course instructors between summer classes, and many invited the professional composers with whom they studied into their schools to work with their young students. By the end of the three-year course sequence, all participants comfortably identified themselves as composers (Kaschub & Smith, 2017).

Threads and Curricular Through-Lines. Undergraduate programs offer greater time flexibility than is typically found in graduate programs or summer professional development offerings. While one-and-done approaches leave pre-service teachers feeling underprepared, a spiralized approach that embeds composition in early course work and revisits it across multiple methods and techniques classes can build pre-service teacher confidence. This approach normalizes the presence of composition in music teaching and learning as it prepares teachers to support generative music making as part of elementary and secondary education.

Stringham, Thornton, & Shevock (2015) examined composition as an integral part of a secondary instrumental techniques class. They found music composition to be a valuable course component that offered insight into the thinking processes of beginning instrumentalists and served as an assessment tool for measuring pre-service teachers’ grasp of specific course content. Applying this example across the general, choral, and instrumental music methods course triumvirate—or within the brass, guitar, percussion, piano, strings, voice, and woodwinds techniques course sequence—would prepare pre-service teachers to include composition in their future work. (Note: Information and materials supporting this approach can be found in the texts previously displayed in Figure 43.1.)

Dedicated Coursework. Another approach worthy of consideration is the creation of coursework specifically focusing on the development of compositional skills across elementary, middle, and high school. Like its partners in choral and instrumental music, composition methods courses would examine foundations in philosophy and research; explore the design and implementation of curriculum at the course, unit, and daily lesson plan levels; help students strategize about recruiting; offer guidance as to how to build and maintain such programs; and present ideas concerning how composition programs might best be evaluated. Dedicated coursework is most effective when it helps students develop skills as composers, addresses teaching and learning at different stages and across a range of settings, and experience applying their newly acquired knowledge and skills in interactions with school-age students.

Building a Base of Personal Composing Experiences. To grow confident in the ability to lead composition study, pre-service teachers must be comfortable with composing (Deemer, 2016). This comfort is established through experiences with a wide variety of projects spanning a variety of contexts and settings. Pre-service teachers benefit from participation in teacher-facilitated whole-class composition, small group and partnered work, and opportunities to compose on their own. They also need to compose music in different styles, exploring idiomatic writing in different genres. Work with both acoustic and digital instruments, as well as other sound sources, will serve to expand their sonic palettes and acquaint them with a range of compositional tools. Further, practice with the use of invented notations, graphic and iconic symbol systems, and traditional notation will allow them to understand the commonalities of representation and how each system has its place in learning to preserve compositional thought. The projects shown in Figure 43.2 are sequenced to scaffold the development of pre-service teachers’ confidence in their composition skills and their skills in giving and receiving feedback.