Open scores and music students: An invitation to compose from Jason Freeman

The New York Times has a fantastic section called “The Score,” which features composers discussing their music, process, and various issues related to composition. Jason Freeman, a composer and assistant professor at the Center for Music Technology at Georgia Tech, recently wrote about the use of open scores as a springboard for creating music. In his post he mentions the small percentage of adults who continue playing music and speculates that even less compose music. When viewed through the prism of the national standards, music education as a whole focuses a great more deal on Standards 1 & 2 (singing and performing instruments) than Standards 3 & 4 (improvising and composing). In a disturbing finding of a 2007 MENC Study some respondants:

Suggested that the references to composing, arranging, and improvising in the Standards should be de-emphasized or deleted. There are no doubt many reasons for this point of view: (1) except for jazz band, there have traditionally been few courses emphasizing these skills in secondary schools; (2) composing, arranging, and improvising have not typically been emphasized in the precollege experience of the nation’s music teachers; and (3) these skills are not generally an important component in the undergraduate or graduate training of music teachers. We cannot teach what we have not learned.

Many music educators do, however, embrace and include composition as a core component of the music classroom and ensemble. Freeman’s invitation for people to create their own versions of his composition”Piano Etudes” could be an interesting project for a school music program. In a nod to the fact that many people do not read standard notation he created a website with Akito Van Troyer that provides the parts of his open score in graphic form and allows the user to hear what she or he is creating. He created a special page for readers of “The Score” to share their creations. He will select a version of each etude to be played by violinist Jenny Lin and then post the scores and audio of the etudes with comments from the composers who created them on “The Score”

After having students create their own versions of Freeman’s “Piano Etudes” why not have them create their own open scores? This could lead to collaborations across the school music program in various configurations. Perhaps general music students might create their own music as an open score and have others arrange it to be played by one of the ensembles? Perhaps students could create an open score to be arranged by parents either before or during the concert through an interactive website to be premiered at the next concert?

There are many resources available for those in music education who wish to include composition in the classroom, ranging from MEJ articles to diverse software options. Kaschub & Smith’s recent article “A principled approach to teaching music composition to children” can be read in RIME online. The three books below provide an excellent starting point and a wealth of information:

How and Why to Teach Music Composition: A New Horizon for Music Education