Episode Overview

In this compelling episode of the Piano Pedagogy Podcast, Jacqueline Beckoff and Arianne Lakra dive deep into the world of composition within music education. They unravel the layers of incorporating composition into music lessons, starting from the foundational levels to the complexities faced by advanced students. Throughout the episode, they share innovative approaches, draw inspiration from both historical and
contemporary composers, and discuss the use of technology in enhancing the compositional experience. Moreover, personal anecdotes reveal the profound impact of composition on students' lives and future careers in music. Join Jacqueline and Arianne as they explore the essential role of composition in cultivating creativity, understanding theory, and nurturing the next generation of musicians.

Watch it on Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcasting app.

Episode Notes

During the episode, the hosts referenced several resources. You can
find them on Amazon at these links. If you purchase products using
links, Defined Music Teacher may receive a portion of the proceeds.

Sketches in Color by Robert Starer
The Piano Teachers Guide to Creative Composition by Karol Close
Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 1: A Step-by-Step Guide for Learning to Compose
Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 2: A Step-by-Step Guide for Learning to Compose
Creative Composition Toolbox, Book 2: A Step-by-Step Guide for Learning to Compose

Introduction to Phrasing

• Importance of Composition: The hosts discuss how composition plays a crucial role in their studios, highlighting its integration from the early stages of music education. 
• Arianne's Approach to Composition: Introduction of compositional concepts to students as early as the second or third week, using numeric methods and creativity to spark interest.
• Jacqueline's Perspective: She emphasizes setting early expectations about diverse musical activities, including composition, and shares her method of incorporating composition through "ingredients" derived from pieces students are
  currently learning. 

Diverse Methods and Philosophical Approaches to Composition

• Beginner to Advanced Strategies: Discussion on tailoring composition exercises to different skill levels, from simple numeric grids for beginners to structured sonata writing for advanced students. 
• Inspiration from Historical and Contemporary Composers: Mention of composers like Pauline Oliveros and Hans Zimmer to encourage creativity and boundary-pushing in students' compositions. 
• Workshops and Interactive Learning: Jacqueline shares unique workshop ideas to challenge students' understanding of music and instruments, fostering a deeper exploration of composition.
• Utilizing Software for Composition: The hosts discuss the benefits of software like MuseScore for composing and teaching, alongside traditional methods like handwriting music. 
• Composition as a Teaching Tool: They emphasize composition's role in understanding music theory, creativity, and the comprehensive development of a music student. 

Personal Stories and Student Impact

• Impactful Student Experiences: Jacqueline shares a powerful story of a student redirected from a military path to pursuing music composition, highlighting the profound effect teaching can have on students' lives.
• Encouraging Future Musicians: The conversation touches on the broader implications of teaching composition, from the creation of new music to the possibilities of careers in various musical fields.

Episode Recap

This episode delves into the critical role of composition in music education, with Jacqueline and Arianne sharing their experiences, methodologies, and the philosophical underpinnings that guide their teaching. They explore composition's potential from the earliest lessons to advanced student projects, emphasizing the value of creativity, technology, and personal connection in nurturing musical talent. Through their dialogue, listeners gain insights into making composition an integral and
inspiring part of their music teaching repertoire.

Show Transcript Jacqueline: Hi, welcome back to another episode of the Piano Pedagogy Podcast. I'm Jacqueline Beckoff, and with me, as always, is Arianne Lakra. We both own successful music studios in Southern California, and I also own Defined Music Teacher. How are things going for you this week, Arian?

Arianne: Things are good. Yeah, things are going fine. You know, still doing recital prep, still answering lots of questions about which instruments are offered at the school, getting a lot of requests for guitar, saxophone, voice, things like that. And who knows? Maybe one day I can expand the studio and maybe hire an employee that actually knows anything about those instruments.

Jacqueline: That would be awesome to have other instruments going on.

Arianne: It would, you know. Right now it's just piano and violin for me. And occasionally the rogue voice student. I try my best to just teach them the basics. How are things going with you, Jacqueline?

Jacqueline: Things are going well. We're gearing up for the recital here in under a month. Now we have practice recitals coming up, a workshop over the next 3 weeks, and then the actual recital. So that's all very exciting stuff, and then, after that, I'm taking a week off. It's also on my birthday that week after the recital.

Arianne: Happy birthday in advance. I know it's going to be in a month or so, right? A month and a half or so.

Jacqueline: Just over a month, actually. But other than that, nothing too much. I've gotten a couple of new students. It's always interesting where the cutoff is. I think we actually spoke about this in the performances episode: when you include someone in a recital or not. But that is not our topic today, so you will not bamboozle me into getting off topic again.

Arianne: But I didn't say anything.

Jacqueline: You are always trying to get me off topic here, just like my students constantly trying to get me off topic.

Arianne: What is this, unintentional Jackie?

Jacqueline: Well, I guess that's okay. But I always have a terrible time staying on topic sometimes with my students, and I like to joke that it's always their fault, but it never is. It's always my fault. But our topic today is composition. This is a fascinating topic to me. It's a big part of my studio, and I know that it's not a big part of most studios. So, before we dive in, what is composition's role in your studio, Arianne?

Arianne: I love teaching composition. I make sure every student goes through it, not just goes through it, but enjoys it as much as I can facilitate. For me, teaching composition starts very early in the student's piano journey, usually the second or third week. I introduce a beginner to compositional methods, such as filling in a 4 by 4 grid that I draw with numbers one through five, that their right hand can play. I like to take a numeric approach to the beginning of piano lessons. If a student can write, say, 1, 3, 5, 4, 2, 3, and just at random create a composition and understand what it sounds like and that they made it, it sets the stage for interesting compositions later on. For more intermediate and advanced students, I like to sometimes give a few parameters, and with that structure, I find a lot of students thrive. Other students thrive with no parameters at all, especially if they're self-motivated and have a good understanding of theory, or are just naturally very creative. So, from student to student, it definitely varies. But to all the listeners out there, my takeaway so far on composition and teaching it is that it's never too early to start.

Jacqueline: Absolutely. It's great to hear that you also have such a big focus on composition. In an earlier episode, we talked about setting expectations early on about the kinds of activities you'll be doing with your students. And I think that composition should be included at that early stage. I've spoken about an activity that I do at evaluations, which is a composition activity. But it's great to hear that composition is at that very early point. But you know, when you're doing those compositions, what kind of role is it? Is it a review? Is it its own activity in its own right? Is it a slight diversion from a different thing? What kind of role is it in the lesson?

Arianne: If it's at the beginner level and pre-staff reading, I'd say a composition exercise is partially its own thing and partially a quick review of finger numbers. What I like to do, especially with students who forget the difference between finger numbers from the left hand to the right hand, is write the finger numbers on each finger with maybe a washable marker.

Jacqueline: Okay.

Arianne: And then, once all 5 fingers on each hand have finger numbers, the guided exercise is to fill a 4 by 4 grid, as I was saying, with numbers one through five in any order that the student chooses. They can instantly read, and sometimes I'll point with a pencil or something. Once they're done filling out their grid, I'll point to each number going from left to right. They look down at their fingers and see what's written in marker, or they just remember what finger is which number, and they play their piece. Usually, especially if a parent is in the room, it results in a little jubilee at the end of the exercise, like, "Hey, mom, I wrote my first piece, and now I performed it. How cool!" And usually, with a lot of students, they want to do another grid right after the first. So the enthusiasm for this exercise tends to abound, and I'm happy with it.

Jacqueline: Yeah. That reaction, that "wow" reaction, where a student is like, "Whoa, I just made this thing," is such a great reaction to have. I had that reaction from a potential student at an evaluation a couple of weeks ago. And she's like, "Wow, I made my first piece!" It's such a great reaction. And pre-staff composition is essentially creating music. It's very adjacent to improvisation. The only difference between improvisation and composition is writing it down in some format. It doesn't need to be on the staff. You can use an ingredients approach where you create sounds based on a certain word or theme, and then you use a line to indicate how long that sound is. Some of our listeners are familiar with the early stages, like writing down finger numbers. But in the later stages, like what's the most advanced composition activity you've done with a student?

Arianne: I have a student who is my little protege. She has been with me for almost 4 years. We've gone from Piano Adventures to Mozart sonatas, Debussy Arabesques, and Chopin Preludes. I was explaining to her the structure of a sonata, and once she knew what the structure was, she started writing her own sonatas unprompted. She's just turned 11, and I'm very proud of her. That would be my most advanced case of composing. She has perfect pitch, and a lot of it just occurs to her while she's doing something fun like if she's on the beach or at a Christmas party. The notes seem to materialize in her mind in a way that I would imagine they would for a decent composer, which is why I'm pushing her to explore this more because it's a talent that she just happens to have.

Jacqueline: Wow!

Arianne: But more typically with my intermediate to advanced students, I give some parameters. This is how she and I started off too. I might say something like, "Please compose an eight-measure piece in duple or triple meter, include syncopation, and make sure it ends in the tonic key." If they already know all these music theory elements, then writing a composition becomes much easier than they might initially imagine. Then they want to do it more often because they realize if they set parameters before composing, the composition materializes practically on its own, with a little imagination and some effort. But if students don't necessarily know what a tonic is, or haven't done Roman numeral analysis yet, then I tend to outline some left-hand chords for them and ask them to craft a melody to go over whatever is in the bass clef that I outlined.

Jacqueline: Gotcha. Yeah, the idea of parameters keeps coming up. I've started doing composition with students as a thing I did some studio-wide composition projects. But it fell by the wayside due to effort needed to move teaching in a new direction. I've made a dedicated push towards including composition because it's so interesting for students. I use the word "ingredients" a lot, likening it to cooking or baking because you can come up with a lot of different dishes using the same set of ingredients. I've dropped the theory book from the materials I include with new students, replacing that kind of stuff with composition. I help students pull out "ingredients" from the pieces they're playing and then have them compose something like the piece they're currently playing. It helps to check comprehension because if they're told to include lots of fourths and come back with no fourths, then there's a problem.

Arianne: That's interesting. I like that you go over the term "ingredients" with your students and liken it to the ingredients of a recipe. The implication is that people are constantly coming up with new recipes that taste wonderful, and that's what students should come away with from the composition exercise.

Jacqueline: Right. And food has been around as long as there have been people. We know that historical figures like Beethoven and Bach used the same musical "ingredients" we use today. There's a direct line from where it was to where it is now. The concept of "ingredients" fascinates certain types of students more than others, but using it to check theory comprehension is just one of its benefits. It helps to construct interesting music because, like you said, if you give a student a blank page and tell them to write, they're going to come back with nothing most of the time, unless they're very forward-thinking and creative.

Arianne: It makes me curious if you have ever taken a class with Pamela Madsen from our college. Dr. Madsen was inspired by Pauline Oliveros, a famous composer who revolutionized twentieth-century music making with the idea of deep listening and ambient sound use in composition. She would create ambient music in underground cisterns and caves, introducing the idea of using ambient sounds in composition, besides the tried and true ingredients we encounter in classical music.

Jacqueline: I didn't take any classes with Madsen.

Arianne: It's also important to inspire students, especially if they're at a certain level, to push the boundaries and be visionaries in their compositions. Bringing up stories about Hans Zimmer and his minimalism, or Pauline Oliveros and her ambient music and deep listening, allows the student to realize, "Hey, I can create music that might not fit any particular mold, and maybe it doesn't sound like Beethoven." Beethoven himself pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in composition. As musicians, our job is to progress the craft and keep the tradition of being non-traditional going, so to speak.

Jacqueline: Yeah, you know, introducing new and interesting techniques on the piano and with other instruments is so interesting to present and to challenge, especially young students with. I do this workshop every couple of years. Once I've had enough students age from one workshop into another, or just kind of move through, because it doesn't really work when there's too many people in the room who already know what the trick is. I lay out a bunch of noisy objects on the table. There's some musical instruments in there like a xylophone or maracas, drums, drumsticks, and then there's pencils, egg shakers, and even a bag of Skittles. I give every student two cards, one that says "yes" and one that says "no." I use these cards in many of my workshop activities because it helps to control a bit of the chaos of a yes/no question with, you know, 6 to 10-year-olds. Then we begin a series of questions. I tell them to, as a group, take everything off the table that they are all confident is not a musical instrument. Generally, they'll all pretty much come to the obvious consensus, like the maracas are instruments, the xylophones are instruments, the Skittles are not, the pencils are not, but the drumsticks are. They're being led towards the very obvious conclusions. Then I ask them, "Okay, so let's figure this out. Why are the maracas a musical instrument and the bag of Skittles isn't?" This workshop is about 45 minutes of making kids question everything they know.

Arianne: Yeah.

Jacqueline: By the end of that segment, they're basically all in agreement that the sound the air conditioning is making is a musical instrument, that the sounds of papers rustling next to each other is a musical instrument. Then you take it a step further and say, "Okay, now, what is music? Can we all figure out a definition of music?" And that is a pretty challenging thing for an adult to define, let alone a musician, a college student. That's like Music Appreciation 101. "Someone raise their hand and define music." What kind of answers do they get, right?

Arianne: And then we have a seminar discussion about it for the rest of the hour.

Jacqueline: Exactly. And the workshop ends with 2 minutes and 33 seconds, instead of 4'33", right? Because kids have a much shorter attention span than John Cage intended.

Arianne: Oh, okay. Right?

Jacqueline: We make our little recording. I sit at the piano for 2 minutes and 33 seconds. I make noises, look at them, and get some of them to laugh, just starting that question of what is music. And it's rough for some of the kids; it's hard to handle, just like Skittles being a musical instrument. It really helps get students thinking about why the piano is a musical instrument.
Arianne: This is why that workshop activity is so great, because you're dealing with the personality types and schemas of multiple people at once, probably young people. And all it takes is one philosophical personality to be in there and question everything from the get-go, not caring about all the weird looks they're getting from your other students in the workshop. And then you can just dive into a discussion, right?

Jacqueline: Yeah, just start talking about it. There's this setup... Are you familiar with Robert Starer?

Arianne: I don't believe so, but...

Jacqueline: He was an American composer, notable for his work in the twentieth century. The reason I bring him up is because he has a set of pieces called Sketches in Color, parts one and two. The first set is simpler than the second, both in concept and technique. Let me grab the book; I'm staring right at it. I had a feeling something like this might come up.

Arianne: Later?

Jacqueline: What was that?

Arianne: Staring at Starer?

Jacqueline: Yes, I was staring at Starer, absolutely. The first set has Purple, Shades of Blue, Black and White, Bright Orange, Gray, Pink, and Crimson. Those are the seven colors in the first set, and then set two includes Maroon, Aluminum, Silver and Gold, Khaki, Pepper and Salt, Aquamarine, and Chrome Yellow. But these pieces all use twentieth-century techniques. For example, Black and White is a bitonal piece representing the duality of the two different colors. Gray is atonal. Crimson is in 7/8. They're all using a different twentieth-century technique. It could be a potential workshop idea, or actually, I did it at one of the recitals for the studio. I played the first seven but left the titles off the program. I didn't tell them the titles. I announced before I played, "I'm going to play seven pieces from a set called Sketches in Color, and they have names, but I've left them off because I'm curious what you think these colors are. Each of them is named after a different color."

Arianne: Fascinating.

Jacqueline: And I had like a dozen people come up to me after the recital, guessing, "That third one, right? That third one had to be Black and White, right? That last one really sounded like Purple to me." It was a really fascinating experience for the audience. I love pushing performances into a more interactive space. That set of pieces is very good if you're looking to spark discussion about more unusual techniques of composition.

Arianne: Phenomenal. These are such wonderful ideas for workshops, and how you structure and plan them down to the details, like what do my programs look like, and how will this inspire students to understand their peers better and challenge their assumptions about what color goes with what sounds, and so on. What is it like when they discover what the composer intended each color to sound like?

Jacqueline: It depends, first of all, on the age group. With the very young kids, there's a lot of disagreement. Some people who teach with concepts of color and shades will often say that we have deeper colors on the bass side of the piano and lighter colors, pinks, yellows, on the high side. But every so often, you get a student with a very different idea of color. It helps to spark debate among the students. I gave students a bunch of different pieces of paper of different colors for that workshop, and I would play one and have them pick out their color. Then we would discuss why. It helps to challenge and get people thinking. There's this wonderful activity I can't claim. Oh, I can't remember her name... Nicola Canton? Are you familiar with that name? She has a podcast and a website, Vibrant Music Teacher. She's very into games.

Jacqueline: Publishing her games, and you can join, and you can get a membership and get access to all of her games. She has a composition activity. They're called mini compositions. Some of them are based around colors. They give you like a bar, 4 bars, and there's like 12 of them. And then there's like, I think one was a triangle, one was square, there was one that was like a tree. There's just a whole bunch of different tiny little inspirations for compositions. And I think that is a really interesting approach, not big. Composition doesn't need to be big. It doesn't need to be long, doesn't need to be grand. It can be very small. And I think maybe that's something that might be a barrier for some people, the idea that composition, capital "C", composing music, having this big grand idea of what it needs to be. But you can have a student write something that's very, very short and still get a lot of engagement out of it.

Arianne: You can have a student write something that is any length on any piece of paper, or not even written out at all. It could be digital. It could be just all in their mind. It could be something that goes right from their mind to a recording.

Jacqueline: Right.

Arianne: Just depending on the circumstances. It's interesting. The idea of not needing a conventional staff writing approach to composing is something I try to drive home a lot of the time with my students. When I was in high school, I was very lucky to have a composition professor by the name of Jonathan Sakada, shout out to Dr. Sakada if he's listening, at Phillips Exeter on the east coast. Dr. Sakada had me write a piece for the violin, even though he's a doctoral teacher in piano. He had me write a violin composition simply because he knew I played violin on the side. He said, "You can use just a regular old piece of paper and draw some lines, squiggles, notes here and there that communicate to the performer vaguely what needs to be done, but leave it up to them to interpret." And I'll never forget that, because during one of our master classes, we had some other violinists who came in, and they used my violin, and they figured out how to do it, and every single person's interpretation from reading the same symbols on a sheet of paper was different. So, composition can take so many different forms. There's also the theme that composition could be totally random if you chose for it to be. You could roll a die several times to come up with each different note name. It doesn't sound too profound now to me, necessarily, because I've been there, done that. But when I was in high school, and Dr. Sakada shared that sentiment with me for the first time, it was one of those moments when my brain flew apart into a million different pieces. It was so liberating to know that I had a professor who was willing to accept a composition of mine, even if it was composed by means that were out of my control, such as the roll of the die, something totally random and based on chance, supposedly.

Jacqueline: Yeah, aleatoric music is fascinating. Chance-based music is fascinating. And it's a great way to involve a group of students. You know, get a very large foam die, they can take turns rolling it on the ground. It's a way to make group composition activity work, which is probably a pretty tricky thing to do unless there is some chance-based element to prevent someone's ideas from being shot down.

Arianne: Yeah.

acqueline: It's a tricky thing to do, more than just small groups. Partners is not a bad idea. I love the group dynamics of dyads and small groups. Aleatoric music is a great way to introduce students to working together towards a shared goal. Have you heard of the Piano Teacher's Guide to Creative Composition?

Arianne: Rings a bell. Caroline...

Jacqueline: Yes. She has three books which are kind of like composition books for students to go through. They're leveled and introduce different compositional tools, articulations, harmony. They have age-appropriate, level-appropriate activities. If you're looking to include composition in your lessons in any form, I would highly suggest getting this book. We'll link it, we'll give an Amazon link in the show notes, so that you can find all of the resources we've talked about today. She has lesson plans for how to include composition for just 5 minutes in a lesson, activities for different age groups. There's a lot in here, but it was very helpful when I started trying to include composition into lessons.

Arianne: Wow, yeah. Composition is one of those activities that is quintessentially musical. It's the foundation of what most of us, as musicians, do and it's a dimension of the music teaching experience that unfortunately gets overlooked all the time. Just look at the way that the Piano Adventures have a lesson book, theory book, performance book, technique and artistry book. Yes, and where is the composition book? I believe that there should be one, because to me, composition is such a huge part of the lesson structure, the way that I structure lessons and lesson plan. I feel like the students are better for it. But a lot of teachers might not know necessarily where to start, and that's why some of these resources that you're referencing are so key because method book companies, publishers, might not be willing to even scratch the surface. And for anyone listening who wants to capitalize on that niche, there it is. Make a lesson book that teaches students how to be wonderful composers, because I haven't seen one yet.

Jacqueline: Yeah.

Arianne: If you know of one, let us know.

Jacqueline: Yeah, for sure. It's sad because it used to be such a big part of music. Composers wrote their own stuff and then performed their own stuff; they would debut their new music. As history has gone on, with more past music available and easier ways to access and distribute music, it became less about creating your own music wherever you were in the world. Now there's a wealth of music from hundreds of years available at our fingertips on websites like IMSLP. But we've lost something in the process; we only look back. In the classical canon, we're so focused on what's in the past, and new music becomes a whole separate thing for composing, which I think is sad.

Arianne: What about popular music in this day and age? I get a lot of students, especially in middle or high school, asking me, "How do I make music that sounds like Kanye West or Taylor Swift?" They might not use terms like "emulate" or understand what popular music encompasses. Is it just the specific genre of Pop, or are we talking about anything that's not classical? I use the broader term to talk about popular music, as we do in the college setting. Why not? These artists often use groundbreaking compositional techniques, whether we like to admit it or not. They sample sounds from subways or construction sites, not using conventional musical instruments. Yet, it's these twenty-first-century urban sounds that make the music so appealing to people today because it emulates the ambient sound we encounter daily.

Jacqueline: I think the reluctance towards popular music is that it becomes difficult to justify for some people when it moves away from something that can be performed on the piano. After all, people are taking piano lessons.

Arianne: This...

Jacqueline: People are taking piano lessons, and there's so much that needs to fit into a lesson. I do very few half-hour lessons because it's such a small amount of time, even with very young students. Most of them eventually bump up to 45 minutes once they've shown they can sit. I don't like to necessarily start them out at 45 minutes. It's always a tough conversation to have to say, "Okay, we're at 45. We need to go down to half an hour," but it's much more pleasant and uplifting to say, "Let's get that extra 15 minutes. Let's get that half hour to 45." But it is difficult for some to justify, and I've wanted to push my composition to having a more active role in my studio. I have a 3-year plan for composition in my studio. This year, I'm starting a composers' workshop as an optional add-on for those really motivated students who enjoy composition. There will be longer-term projects, and they'll get a chance to share their compositions in a group setting. Next year, I plan to introduce a weekly composition class, and the year after that, private composition lessons that students can take, maybe even if they don't take piano lessons with me. But I feel a bit of imposter syndrome; I'm not sure if I consider myself a composer. I write music, but I don't have the same credentials as a composer as I do as a teacher, a performer.

Arianne: Well, does the existence of credentials mean much in the scheme of things, especially for musicians? Most musicians might not have any credentials at all, and yet everyone in the world knows their name.

Jacqueline: I don't mean literal credentials, more figurative credentials. What qualifies me? I don't need a piece of paper, but I don't have the experience or published music. I don't have a composition degree. I worry that I'm not qualified to go that far because I don't have that background, as I do with performing.

Arianne: I see what you're saying. And the interesting thing is, you know, listening to compositions from people just starting out, you might think, "Not my speed, not my style," maybe due to too many parallel octaves or fifths, or it doesn't adhere to certain standards we've cultivated in our minds. But if you've developed a taste, then I think you could be a valuable facilitator of the compositional process on the piano. And if you're interested in composing more, there are many ways to do that. I love using MuseScore because it allows me to take advantage of its features, especially the playback feature, to see if it sounds okay to my ear. It's different from writing something down on paper; hearing it played back is a totally different experience. This is a tool I've shared with some of my students, using MuseScore or GarageBand, for example.

Jacqueline: Right, right. We're not sponsored by MuseScore, but MuseScore, if you want to reach out... Anyway, the tools are really interesting. I have my students start out by hand, with a metal ruler, a mechanical pencil, understanding how long stems need to be, where the treble clef and bass clef go, how a quarter rest looks, getting very intimate with the way sheet music looks. But you mentioned facilitating, and I think knowing limitations is important. I know I can take a student much further on the piano than as a composer. So, I had a student, a bright 17-year-old, who was planning to join the military because he didn't know what else to do with his life. We were doing composition together, and right before our May recital, he writes this piece called "I'm Sorry," marked apologetically, in a minor key, a slow waltz. He said he's leaving for basic training and wanted to write this for me because our time together was meaningful. He never thought he could write music. I wrestled with this, not wanting to overstep my bounds as a piano teacher. I prodded, asking if he's passionate about the military, or if there's a strong tradition in his family. He said no, he just didn't know what else to do with his life. His parents weren't pushing him out, his brother, at 24, was still around. I told him I'd never forgive myself if I didn't say he has potential as a composer, if he wants it. The music he's written shows understanding, creativity, and he's only just begun to nurture that. I told him there's another option out there if he wants it.

Arianne: Oh!

Jacqueline: I advised him to go home and talk with his parents, to think things through, and consider if the military truly was his last resort, suggesting there might be other options for him. He returned the next week saying he had discussed it with his parents. I also reached out to his mom to inform her of our conversation, apologizing if I had overstepped any boundaries. She was grateful, mentioning they were puzzled by his sudden interest in the military, which neither of them was thrilled about.

Arianne: Oh, my gosh!

Jacqueline: He came back the next week, expressing a desire to explore composing music. We started having two lessons a week, one hour dedicated to composition, another to piano. He made significant progress. However, after 6-8 months, he began struggling with his mental health and had to stop piano lessons. Despite this, he purchased a grand piano, vowing to never stop writing or playing music, expressing gratitude for our time together. A year later, I found out he was attending college for music, maintaining a complicated relationship with it but appreciating our work together. He decided against joining the military.

Arianne: What?

Jacqueline: And he says he's writing some, that he has a complicated relationship with it, but he really appreciates what we've done together. He is not in the military.

Arianne: Oh, my goodness! So, this was a life-changing process and conversation you had with this student. This dialogue potentially changed the course of this person's life.

Jacqueline: Yeah. Yeah. It was.

Jacqueline: Yeah. It was a, you know, I told him. I said, you know, if you go to the military, they're going to pay for you to do college. And he said something about being a nuclear engineer. And he said, but then I'm going to be locked in for like 6 years. And I said, you know, that sounds like it's a very certain path that if you go that way you're going to be closing some doors for a long time. I got it.

Arianne: Not to mention the risk.

Jacqueline: Right, not to mention the risk of being in the military. And then I said, you know, if you want, if you explore composition, and in a year you decide it's not for you, I'm sure the military will still take you at 20 instead of 19 or 18, or whatever. So one of these paths is closing doors because you will not have the opportunity to practice in the military, you know. You don't get to have a piano in the barracks. You don't, you know, get to go off base and do your piano lessons. You're not going to have a lot of time. So that is a very closed-off path. You'll be 26 or 27 by the time you're done, and then you're going to be coming back to this. It's just closing off a path. And this other one is, it's you leaving all of your doors open. And yeah. But that was one of the first students that I did composition with. And so I think that's part of why I feel so passionate about it because it is such a creative thing that not everyone realizes. Hey, I can do this. This is an option for me. I can write music. I can end up doing the soundtracks for TV shows and movies, and I can, you know, work. I had a student that went off and worked with, I think he worked for the production company for Chance, the rapper, so.

Arianne: No way.

Jacqueline: Yeah, I do. I don't know if it was Chance, but I know that he was going down to Los Angeles, and he stopped his piano lessons because he got a job working at a production company. And so people aren't aware, you know, we need to tell sometimes that these things are available to them as options. Composer is not high up on the list of job opportunities that they tell little kids about. Right? So I think it's important that we introduce people to this, people of all ages, to this creative process. And just tell them, hey, this is an option that's available to you if you're interested in it.

Arianne: It is. I mean, content is constantly being produced for public consumption, and that includes the format of video game music.

Jacqueline: Yeah, absolutely.

Arianne: Movie soundtracks, advertising. So much other programming that we're not even maybe touching on popular music, of course. And even concert music.

Jacqueline: Someone designs the sounds for ringtones and the Windows startup menu. Someone designed that. Someone wrote that, right? You know, there's music all around us in every aspect of our life, and someone is writing that music. And, you know, parents don't take their kids to little composers' classes, but they do take them to piano class, and if they can be exposed to writing music and composing, they can find something that is new and exciting to them.

Arianne: Touching on that point that you just made, I would like to add that by the time a lot of pianists in high school get to that point where they're considered advanced, you know, MTAC level maybe 7 and up, composition almost becomes one of those things that de facto is included in the instruction process. So, for all of the piano instructors listening out there, be prepared to introduce these concepts into your advanced students' lesson planning, basically.

Jacqueline: Yeah, it's, you know, creating is the highest form of understanding. We talked about that in next week's episode, actually. We have a very special episode next week. It's going to be our tenth episode, and we got together in person at our alma mater to record an episode in person. That's next week's episode. So we talked about Bloom's taxonomy, and the highest level of that is creating something new, given the concepts that you know, right? So, at the very least, it's a very good way to see if your students understand something and, at the most, it can change a life.

Arianne: Amen!

Jacqueline: So, I think we're needing to do our big wrap-ups here. So, takeaways, what's a big takeaway for you, Arianne?

Arianne: Gosh! Where do you even begin? My takeaway is, I would love to do part 2 on this topic. Listeners, let us know if that's something you'd be interested in, because I could talk about anything related to teaching composition and practicing composition for days. I could never get tired of it. But the big takeaway is if you are struggling to know where to start on teaching elements of composition, there are so many resources that Jackie pointed to, and apps, composing software, manuscript paper that you could set up all of your beginner students with, so that they get that experience of handwriting notes on a staff and putting the bar lines where they need to be, etc. You can explore mini compositions. You can incorporate the philosophy of composing into your workshop activities. The sky, and beyond, is the limit when you're teaching composing. And even if you feel like you are not the most experienced or strongest composer in the world, the fact that you know how to analyze and listen to music critically, perform it, and you've been through all the stages of learning piano, and you feel like you've mastered your craft, that is enough to be able to say, "Hey, I can set up my students with a good foundation in the practice of composition."

Jacqueline: Absolutely. Yeah, you know, my big takeaway here, as it is with a lot of our topics, is that you don't need to start big with this, right? You don't need to start with these large, grand ideas, right? Start with Arianne's finger number activity that we discussed at the beginning of the episode. That is, it is a under 5-minute activity, and maybe do it instead of a different way that you practice finger numbers. So, not even additional, just slot it into something else that you already do, right? You don't need to start off with big concepts, big ideas to dip your toes in and see what the response is, you know. I'm starting a recital next year with only music written by my students. Either they're performing their own music or they're performing a piece written by someone else in the studio. That doesn't happen, you know, you don't start there, right? You start with just simple stuff, and then you work up. So don't let this be a big, scary thing. Get "The Piano Teacher's Guide to Creative Composition" by Carol Klose. The link will be in the show notes on the Defined Music Teacher blog, and just try it out. See what happens.

Arianne: Fantastic.

Jacqueline: Well, I think that's it. We're going to wrap up, so be on the lookout for that very special episode next week for episode number 10, where we are sitting in the same place at the same time, unlike our normal recording setup. But thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Arianne: Bye-bye.