Overview:
Lessons in creativity focus primarily on process rather than product or the act of reproducing music. In order for students to become independent thinkers in music, they should be motivated to develop aesthetic decision-making skills through improvisation and composition. Skills in creativity based upon divergent thinking can occur at various levels beginning with the spontaneity of young students singing a song to more developed works capable of becoming a musical product in the form of compositions, and pre-composed or improvised performances.
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
- Explain the rationale for creativity lessons in the elementary music class,
- Summarize the ways improvisation is initiated through simple activities,
- Identify how lessons focusing on creativity can reinforce music concepts through improvisation and composition,
- Illustrate the ways in which creativity activities can stimulate students’ imagination through divergent thinking and exploration,
- Describe the guidelines for teaching a lesson focusing on creativity,
- Design the basic elements for creating a sequence when teaching an improvisation and composition lessons,
- Describe how creativity activities can be assessed effectively,
- Design and demonstrate a creativity lesson, and
- Identify ways in which technology can enhance a creativity lesson.
Are Elementary Students Able to Compose Music?
Composition and improvisation are important components of creativity. These, combined with arranging, provide an important medium for inventive and imaginative development. Composition differs from improvisation in that it provides students with planning and reflection as part of the process. Necessarily, compositions take more extended time as students compose, reflect, revise, and continue to cycle through the process, refining their product.
Composition can be effective if activities are well structured and designed. Like improvisation, composition activities should begin with limited parameters so that students don’t become overwhelmed. For example, encourage the students to compose a phrase using only three notes with a pre-determined rhythmic line.
The music educator needs to function as a guide for the students by serving as a sounding board, performing the students’ ideas as a basis for comparing musical ideas, stimulating students and drawing out their compositional ideas, and helping students to evaluate and refine their compositions.
