Category: Education

  • Assessing composition

    After reading a forum post on what a music teacher considered the variability with regards to the marking of composition coursework, I wondered what made the assessment of this component a challenge. We often consider ‘art’ as something difficult to assess – it’s subjective, how can we make judgements and apply one marking criteria to…

  • Musical Pathways

    The Henley report on music education in the United Kingdom emphasised the value and importance of music making as a practical skill and how much this can enrich and aid the development of young people’s lives. This comprehensive survey lacked a detailed account of class music lessons and accentuated the role of extra-curricular music making.…

  • Minimal content need not mean minimal effect

    Discovering one’s compositional identity or voice seems to be a process of continual discovery. I’m not certain I have one voice – perhaps I have an approach that could manifest itself in a variety of sound worlds that would fit the desired context. My last orchestral work ‘Cypher’ (2010) has a very different sound to…

  • Composing Across the Spectrum

    -Below is the text of the article that appears in the current issue of EPTA’s Piano Professional- Nothing can be more satisfying in the early stages of a new composition with a pupil than exploring scores. For me, all composition should start with research; listening to similarly scored pieces, exploring a particular composer in depth…

  • Writing the trio

    Rehearsals are very much underway and the songs seem to be working. It is a real pleasure to hear them come to life and so far only one key change – which I was reluctant to do but it was necessary to maintain the integrity of the vocal line even though this was at the…

  • Juniper Dreams

    Posters are up and rehearsals have started. I’m feeling remarkable fortunate to be having my first musical theatre work performed by the pupils I teach. For the first time in my compositional work I have the opportunity to work with the performers over an extended period and I am finding I am also composing as…

  • It need not be fleeting

    The Henley report emphasised the value and importance of music making as a practical skill and how much this can enrich and aid the development of young people’s lives. What was lacking from the comprehensive survey was a detailed acknowledgement of the class music lessons themselves. How important is Western Art Music in the teaching…

  • ConTENT with CONtent?

    Result day looms. I’m sure I’m not alone as a teacher in preparing to receive the news of my pupils’ performance. Contemplating results day in turn leads to thoughts of the new term ahead and the various performances and the schemes of work I’ll be teaching. I genuinely enjoy looking back on the previous year…

  • Dance steps…

    “To become integrated and healthy … You need to sense the patterns of preparation, stress, and release contained in your scores, and let these patterns inform and animate your gestures, which become varied and adaptable rather than habitual and fixed.” — Pedro de Alcantara, Integrated Practice: Coordination, Rhythm and Sound (OUP 2011) I’m really enjoying…

  • Teaching composition

    On route to a one-off composition lesson I thought I’d try and clarify my approach to composition teaching. Why bother? Does it matter that I have a conscious strategy for helping young composers develop? Is there really any right and wrong in “modern” compositional approaches? Are we facilitating the development of unique compositional voices, or…