Frontpage › Forums › Music Composition › Composing in school ensembles! May is a great time!
nafmeadmin.
nafmeadminHi everyone! My name is Xander Koops and I am the composition mentor for the month of May for this Forum. I direct the undergraduate music education program at Azusa Pacific University and one of my passions has been helping local middle school and high school teachers include composition with their music ensembles. The end of the school year often has days when we as music teachers are finished with performances and have dead time. Rather then watch a random video, why not do some really fun creative composing lessons!! I have a lot of examples–email me if you want more specifics: akoops@apu.edu –I’d love to share some of my lesson plans with you.
Also, consider trying some composition lessons from published resources:
1. Musicianship: composing in band and orchestra. Published by GIA
2. Music Outside the Lines by Maude Hickey (Oxford University Press)
Do you have a favorite piece of music you have done with your band, choir, orchestra, or other setting that has supported you in bridging to a composition activity? If so please share!! In further posts, I hope to share some of my favorite examples! All the best!!
nafmeadminHi 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.
nafmeadminMatt, this is fantastic–I love it!! I hope many teachers reading this forum will be able to use this, and I certainly will be adding this to my teaching at Azusa Pacific University with my music education students!
nafmeadminThanks Xander!
And as I mentioned in another post this is our learning community that I run: Music Composition as Experience It is geared towards teachers who are interested in using technology to help their students compose in a typical classroom setting.
Christopher M. Johnson, Professor of Music Education and Music Therapy, is currently the Chair of the Music Education and Music Therapy Department and Director of the Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas. Johnson earned his Ph.D. from the Florida State University.
Since his arrival at The University of Kansas, Johnson has taught courses in Instrumental Conducting, Teaching Instrumental Music, Managing Behaviors in the Music Environment, Psychology and Acoustics of Music, and Research Methods in Music Education and Music Therapy. Johnson served two terms as the editor of the International Journal of Music Education: Research, the research publication of the International Society for Music Education. He is currently serving his second term on the National Association for Music Educations Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. He also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Music Education, and one earlier term as the Chair for the MENC Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. Johnson also served as the Chair for the Research Commission of the International Society for Music Education.
Johnson’s research interests include applied research in music education, and basic research in all aspects of the psychology of music. He has published articles in many journals including the Journal of Research in Music Education, the International Journal of Music Education, the Journal of Music Therapy, Journal of Band Research, Contributions to Music Education, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, among others. Johnson has also been an active member and contributor to the Research Seminar of the International Society for Music Education and World Alliance for Arts Education.
Johnson received a university teaching award – the Ned N. Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching and received the recognition for Graduate Teaching Achievement from the Center for Teaching Excellence. Johnson was also awarded a lecturing & research award as a J. William Fulbright Scholar and recently received the Ella Scoble Opperman Citation for Distinguished Achievement from the Florida State University College of Music.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.