Inspiring children to compose

When children are learning to play an instrument, parents are often reluctant to let them just play around with it. They may be worried that the child may damage the instrument and many musical instruments, even beginner ones, can be quite expensive. They may also worry that the child may not take their studies seriously if they're encouraged to simply have fun. Yet I believe that composition and improvisation, or as your child will see it, simply playing, is one of the best parts of practice time.

One thing that I hope I've made clear throughout all my posts on this subject is that it's important that children practice mostly because they want to, not because they're being forced to. Now, of course there will be times when the child initially doesn't want to practice. That's understandable. I don't always want to cook the dinner, but once I've started I'm fine. So it may be that quite frequently a child will need a little nudge to begin with. Once they're into their practice session, though, ideally a child should be interested and enjoying it enough to put some effort into playing well.

One thing that can be the 'fun' part of practice can be simply playing the instrument by making things up. Children can then really experiment with sounds and the effects of how they play. They can let their imagination roam free and really express how they feel. (I have to confess there have been some times when my son has apparently been rather grumpy and fed up with practicing, according to what I've heard in his improvisations!) They can feel as though this part of practice is entirely under their control, and that it is something they're doing to please themselves.

Some children will baulk when faced with a carte blanche opportunity though. They need some sort of minimal guide, or some kind of starting point, to spark their inspiration. Some ideas for inspiring a child to compose are:

• Choose an animal and play the way it sounds. The parent has to guess the animal.
• Play a story with different characters (Peter and the Wolf is a great starting point for this idea)
• Choose five notes in an octave and play using only those notes
• Play with your hands crossed over
• Choose a favourite character and play their tune
• Play a particular emotion (or a series) again for the parent to guess
• Play the black notes only
• Use any part of your body to play - palms, forearms, elbows, forehead, feet
• If your child has a favourite musician or type of music, play like......
• A lucky dip of random words

As you can see, there are many ways to give a child ideas on composing their own music. Here's my son having fun:

It's important to always be 100% positive about your child's efforts. There is no right or wrong, after all, and it can be crushing to receive criticism for something you've created as a personal expression. I've found that over time my son's attempts have become more musical and coordinated without me imposing my advice. I think his compositions are one of the parts of his practice that he listens to most intently and learns the most from.

Composition

I came across this webpage recently, which discusses how to teach composition to piano students. It occurred to me, is it really necessary or possible to teach composition? Can we actually teach people how to be creative? I think there are often attempts to do this - courses on teaching people how to write fiction, or how to paint - but ultimately what actually happens is that the student is taught how to mould their efforts into an already recognised and accepted structure. What is taught is convention, not how to create something new and different, nor how to express that unique individual's persona.

We always incorporate composition into my son's practice. Depending on his mood, this can form the largest or smallest part of the session. Sometimes he'll really enjoy himself and create something pleasant to listen to, other times you can clearly hear him saying 'why do I have to do this again!' through the keys.

Of course, it isn't enough just to say to a child: right, compose something. For a start, if composition hasn't been built into practice sessions right from the beginning, the child will be confused. They will be used to learning how to play other people's songs, which, once they've mastered them, sound quite good. Faced with the prospect of playing something of their own, they might not know where to start. Also, some children (and some adults!) find creating something from a blank slate quite daunting. How will they know if what they're doing is right?

The answer to that is there is no 'right'. If a person expresses themselves in some kind of creation, who are we to say whether it is 'correct' or not. It simply is. Whether it's beautiful, or pleasing, or meaningful to others are the questions that we can attempt to answer, if we want to, but there is no need to take that path with children's exploration of music until they want to.

Trying to convince a child of this is not always easy, though. Children are brought up to obey, follow instructions and learn. We try, often as part of 'good' parenting, to suppress their natural impulses. This is a great shame because children are the most naturally wonderful creators of all human beings, in their play and discovery of the world around them. This is why I believe that allowing them free rein on the piano during composition is paramount. If the child's natural impulse is thwarted, what they're doing ceases to be a true expression of themselves and instead, like so many aspects of children's lives, becomes another thing under the control of an adult.

In our efforts to make learning the piano something that children enjoy and want to do, we can use composition as an opportunity to hand control over to them completely. Some children may find this daunting, but there are ways we can spark them off and help them feel safe that I'll talk about in my next post.

Emotional ups and downs

Had an interesting practice today. One of my goals with my son is to encourage him to listen to himself as he plays, and to take some ownership of his learning. I think it will be an important step for him to take control. I'd really like him to feel as though he's doing this for the enjoyment that he gets out of it, and a sense of satisfaction and achievement. It's probably a lot to ask of a seven year old who, let's face it, would rather be on the computer for most of his waking day, given the choice!

Anyway, today we were working on The Happy Farmer so I had another bash at this little plan of mine, and asked him to listen out for ways he could make it sound even better. We often do this and he resists - he doesn't like thinking about anything, he just wants to play and have fun - so I usually end up making suggestions. Today I persisted, though, and hit upon the idea of asking him to play a part of the song in two different ways, then decide which one sounded better and think about why that was. Success! After a little to-ing and fro-ing he decided he could play the chords on the left hand more legato and that would sound better.

Now I'm interested to see what happens tomorrow - will he be better at remembering this little piece of polishing because he thought of it himself? We'll see.

Not all was so good, though. As happens quite often when he's learning a new reading piece (Petite Berceuse in Methode Rose) he felt daunted and overwhelmed and became a little teary. He always manages to play whatever he attempts eventually, though admittedly sometimes it takes quite a while; so I don't really know why he feels this way. This initial feeling makes his final success sweeter I think, but I'd rather he didn't feel this way at all. Hey ho, children are creatures of the moment, I suppose.

To finish, his piano teacher has recommended this performance as an inspirational piece for young piano students:

It'll be a while before we get to this level!

Where we are now

I realised recently that a lot of my time posting on this blog has been spent relating many of the things that have helped me support my son with his learning, and trying to explain the rationale behind much of what we do. Yet when I started writing another of my main intentions was also to record and share the process with others.

So where are we now? We are busy, as always, polishing and honing the songs my son already knows, which is all of Suzuki Piano Book 1, and the first two songs of Book 2. The links are to later versions of the books we actually use. In our, older, versions, Mrs Kataoka plays the pieces. My teacher prefers her playing to later versions because Mrs. Kataoka was taught by Suzuki himself.

The piece my son is currently learning is The Happy Farmer by Schumann. Here is a youtube video of a little girl playing it:

This is a standard piece for students of musical instruments and I particularly like it. For my son, it marks his movement into more complex pieces than the simpler, nursery rhyme-style songs.

This piece has a particular significance for him though. It's also one of the tunes to the film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. As soon as he heard it on the CD he recognised it immediately. "It's Ponyo on the Cliff!" he shouted. A lot of his motivation to learn the other songs has been driven by his desire to learn to play this one, and his first rendition of the melody (he has still to play both hands together for this song) was great. It demonstrated to me how much of an effect the student's feelings have on performance.

I think it also shows how positive the effect is of a child having a reason to play, a reason supplied by themselves, rather than dictated to them by an adult. After all, very few children would choose to put in lots of hours learning to play an instrument if they had no reason to do so.

So for now we're going well, buoyed up by his pleasure in finally getting to a song he really wants to learn. My next task is to think of a good reason for him to learn the next song!