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The challenges of teaching composing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Mandy Winters
Mandy Winters*
Affiliation:
Oxford Brookes University, School of Education, Harcourt Hill, Oxford OX2 9AT, UKmwinters@brookes.ac.uk
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Extract

It is a familiar comment from some new beginner music teachers, ‘I'm not a composer, how do I teach composition, I'm not sure about this, I don't feel confident . . .’. Since the work of Paynter (1982), Swanwick (1979), Swanwick and Taylor (1982) and others, whose work has influenced the National Curriculum in England, classroom music-making has focused on the key musical activities of listening, performing and composing, assuming an experiential learning approach which builds on the inter-relatedness of the three activities. Visits to school music departments reveal a range of pupil music-making but often the area which is least confidently facilitated and supported (and perhaps misunderstood) is composing. Why is this and what are the challenges of teaching composing?

Type
Teacher-Practitioner Contributions
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 19 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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