Reply To: Composing in school ensembles! May is a great time!

[nafmeadmin]

Hi Xander-
Thanks for leading this part of the forum!

For the last three years I have my middle school concert band compose original pieces and we perform them all at one of our spring concerts.

You can see the curriculum that I’ve created for this project here: http://www.yciw.net/knights/courses/compose-for-band/

This year students chose to compose a piece in a certain style. Also, all of my students have composed music for professional ensembles prior to this project.
One tip I have for teachers who may be new to this is to begin by having their band kids compose simple warm up chorales. I give them all the assignment where they must compose 3 part chorales using only whole notes and half notes. They must only use consonant intervals. We use them throughout the year in place of our normal warmups and the kids love it!
Noteflight make the transpositions very easy. I’ll have them put one voice in Bb and one in Eb and the 3rd leave in concert pitch and that covers a part for everyone.