Teaching improvisation or composition to very young students

[hyrst]

I have a 7 year old boy who is very creatively gifted.  He is learning piano because he wants to compose or orchestrate scores for video clips.  He has some excellent ideas but they are just kernels of ideas.  I am trying to help him develop his work into full pieces.  I feel a littel out of my depth or unsure how to present things to him.  I would value suggestions from those who are good at imrpvising or who teach improvisation.

So far, I have tried to record his ideas for him using midi conversions or just trying to hand write the scores.  I find this frustrating  because I can't keep up to him or it takes a lot of time to write things down.  Any suggestions, please?

I also struggle to help him build his ideas.  I play around and give him suggestions, but when I do so I am not thinking too much about what I am doing but instead trying to explore with him to spur his own imagination.  The problem is, he might not be inspired by something and then later on he says he likes what I did so many turns ago - except by then I don't have a clue what I did.  IS this simply a matter of my being more structured and aware of what I am doing or is there another answer?

I am trying to teach him about chord progressions and theory and things like that.  However, he is a very visual learner and as soon as I start talking theory, he gets lost.  He comes up with great ideas but he sees them not as notes, but as colours and landscape.  Due to this, he is improvising in more complex keys - such as b minor which associates with F# - it's hard for him to get these theory concepts.  (He is finding sounds that remind me of sometimes Impressionistic music at around grade 5 level or sometimes of Perter Sculthorpes' work at an intermediate level pieces.)

He is so keen and creative.  I want to help him but don't know how.  I know I can use ideas like melody augmentations, sequencing, etc etc.  Perhaps it is a matter of time and by seeing how things work from experience his skills and complexity will grow.  I don't know.  Perhaps there are even people who improvise but don't read music who might have some answers.  Thank you for any advice.

[dan101]

I would introduce one concept at a time. For example, one lesson might explore the one, four and five triads of C major. Another lesson could involve the learning of a C Blues scale or 12 bar blues pattern. This teaching approach has worked for me in the past.

I would also do a fair amount of teaching by copying at the start, in order for the student to achieve immediate results.

Good luck.

[Petter]

Tell him to stop that nonsense and get back to hanon at once!
 Just kidding, I actually always wondered if there are teachers out there with both classical and improvisation training. Maybe itīs better in the US of A but here in sweden I get the impression most teachers are either "afro" (jazz,blue, pop, fusion) etc or "classic!" I may be wrong, anyway good luck. Sorry for trying to hi-jack your thread 

[hyrst]

Tell him to stop that nonsense and get back to hanon at once!

  Wow, I never thought of that!   

Thanks Dan.  I might actually need to structure concepts a little and present them progressively - even if he isn't immediately using them.  I have shown him how to find the primary chords and relative keys for modulation.  He is beginning to 'foresee' where his motifs might move to.  I tried the blues progressions and scales, but he didn't take to the style.  He is quite Impressionistic in his creations, so I perhaps need to teach him more about scales and tonalities.  I don't feel confident in this area myself, so it is hard - but I want him to do what gives him passion with music, it is the only way to build other areas, to give them purpose. 

I need to get inside this creative visualisation of the music that is fundamental to his approach.  I also can see Dan, that the applied theory is more useful presented a little more each week.  I wonder is the issue is really that i don't understand the concepts with progression and unity?

Thanks

[lostinidlewonder]

I would teach him immediately how to write his music down himself. How to write rhythms down, understanding key signature, general patterns at piano etc. Giving him the tools to write down his music intelligently is important, at 7 he should be able to manage some of it, or at least write something down which you could improve upon during the class (instead of writing from scratch in the lesson).

I use to write on my Commodore 64 back in the 80s music, I didn't know exactly what I was doing but I experimented with all the different types of notes and rests and wrote my own stuff for fun. I found this very fun and instructional for me as a little child, something I could self explore, write down and then ask the computer to play back what I wrote. So perhaps giving your student some program to use so he can write his music or copy composed music would be helpful.

I would also get him to compose simple pieces in the style of say basic Mozart or Czerny as a platform to teach him composition theory.

[hyrst]

Thanks
I especially like the idea of using software for experimentation with scores and not only the piano keys

[bernhard]

Have you ever heard of Candida Tobin?

Her students learn to compose from lesson one, and soon they are churning up the most impressive compositions. Her basic philosophy is that just like we learn to read and write (= express our ideas in writing) with words, so should we do with music. A beautiful philosophy no doubt, but who can do it? Well. She can! And the “secret” is in her method of teaching music, which took her over 50 years to develop and refine. Fortunately she went to great trouble to document it and organise it pedagogically, so anyone who so wishes can get the same incredible results she gets (e.g. five year olds composing sonatas, etc.)

The main drawback is that you have to learn the method, which takes time, patience, and at the beginning trust that it will work, since many of the ideas go against traditional piano pedagogy and even common sense. At its basis is a colour system (each note has its own colour), which again most traditional teachers are eager to disregard. And yet, once one truly understands it, it is pure genius. So donīt dismiss it off hand, expect to devote 3 – 6 months (may be a year) to truly learn it, and you will be astounded.

If you live into the UK, she is still active (at least was three years ago when I left) and she is very welcome of people interested in her ideas, in fact she has a program to train teachers in her methods.

And no, I donīt get commissions. I just think she is a lovely lady whose ideas should be widely known.

Check out her website (her material is on sale there):

www.tobinmusic.com


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[lostinidlewonder]

....And no, I donīt get commissions. I just think she is a lovely lady whose ideas should be widely known.

Check out her website (her material is on sale there):

www.tobinmusic.com


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Would we ever think that you where palming off some cheap musical product like some other people I would be very interested to see what she Tobin is about if you say it is "pure genius".

I have found composition very difficult to teach people because of the options that you have. It reminds me of the opening moves of a game of Chess. To those who don't know anything it is chaotic random and the number of choices daunting. But if you know opening theory and the way in which certain choices are made, then you start to learn how to deal with the infinite decisions and start to learn to control what you do. However most people are not interested in it, they prefer to play stuff which has already been written and is probably much better than what they could ever produce. ^_^

[johnk]

The Tobin method shows how to find the 3 main chords I V7 and IV as notation, using a colour coding for notes. But as far as i can see, it does not apply this directly to the piano keyboard.

In my own teaching, I have developed a "degree card" which you place on the keyboard behind the black keys. It shows the notes and chords belonging to any major or minor key. I use this with relative solfa. Thus 'doh' (the 1st degree) and all 7 degrees are made concrete, and when kids use this they begin to hear the notes as relative pitch.

I would get your student to make up tunes to simple poems - make them up about subjects he suggests - use rhyme and rhythm to suggest a starting point for making up tunes in phrases. Start with the tonic chord  (d m s) and add the dominant 7th (s t r f ). Not only does the degree card make all this visually concrete on the keyboard, but you can get him to 'write' pieces in Finale NotePad in solfa notes - notes that have the relative solfa letter in the notehead.

He can transpose the pieces to different keys learning about key signatures on the way. Both in the notation software and on the keyboard by moving the degree card.

I strongly recommend getting Finale NotePad 2006 before they take it off the market. This free application allows you to simply paste different notation styles, such as solfa notes, over the music. But later versions of the software dont allow this. My youtube videos show the process. I can send you the conversion files.

https://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oQeIeNt5yx4

[hyrst]

Thanks John and Bernhard.  John, I would appreciate the files, thank you. 

I have taken an introductory peek at the Tobin method just now and will look into it some more for my general teaching.  It seems that it might go deeper in to ideas that I have already come up with for use with my own students. 

Part of the dilemma I have with the boy I mentioned is that he is already creating things that are quite complex.  He has very creative and effective ideas for parts of pieces.  They would be an intermediate level complexity if read from score.  He is little by little taking in theory, but it always seems what he needs (foundations) are too simple for what he can already do by ear.  For example, he will now use many good chord progressions because they sound right to him.  He is starting to know how to modulate.  But, I feel like the process is slow because it seems to relate to just the piece he is developing.  Maybe knowledge is gowing that will found other pieces.  Perhaps he needs to learn enough to have tools for independence.  Perhaps it wouldn't seem so slow if he was writing 8 bar melodies instead of trying to create 3 to 5 minute pieces.  I don't know.

I don't know - sorry.  Perhaps I am still trying to work out what I need to do to help him.  I wonder if we are both impatient becasue he wants to do more than he has the foundations for.  He needs to learn enough so he can be independent in his creations.  He doesn't read confidently.  He can read, but not fast enough that he is patient with it at this stage.  I teach shapes in teaching reading - he uses this well - but he uses colour for keys (in his own mind) and other more intricate images for keyboard geography and sound.  I haven't truly tapped into his visual comprehension.  Maybe that would help - teaching in his 'language'. 

I think I need differently ways of constructing and approaching my teaching for him.  The software might be an answer and there could be somethign in the Tobin ideas that I oculd use.  Maybe it is just a matter of time.

Thanks for yoru help everyone.

[johnk]

Hello Hirst.

If you give me your email addres I can send you the solfa notes converter.

Cheers, John

[bigjohn]

Have you ever heard of Candida Tobin?

When I looked her up I found out she died