Composing Your Own Score, Part 2

In a previous post, I wrote to you about how to get the children following up from a music lesson by composing their own score. Apologies if I’ve already covered this, but here, I’d like to add just a little detail.

First of all, you can find the steps to composing a score here.

Now, when the children compose their score, it’s important that they not only write out their score, but also that they copy out the parts onto separate pieces of paper.

Copying out separate parts has practical applications. For one, when the children recruit other children to perform their compositions, they can hand out the parts for the other children to perform. It’s much easier to perform a piece of music when everyone isn’t crowded around the same piece of paper.

Second, just like in a professional orchestra, one child who doesn’t have a part can be the “conductor” and beat time for the other children while reading from the entire score.

Finally, the score can be folded up with the parts and added to your classroom listening library for future generations of children in your classroom to perform.

Now, Ivan's composition “Creepout” for piano, hand drum, and tone bars, will live on in our classroom for years to come.

More later!