Compose Yourself!: Teacher's Book

This book cuts through the paralysis many music teachers feel around composition instruction. Rather than overwhelming you with theory or leaving you to improvise lesson plans, Harris provides fifty concrete, sequenced activities that actually work with real students. The bite-size structure means you can grab what you need mid-week without reading a manifesto first.

Music teachers working with students aged 7-16 who want to build composition skills across a broad age range without reinventing the wheel every term. Whether you teach in primary schools, secondary schools, or mixed-age ensembles, this resource scales to meet your students where they are.

Use individual lesson plans as standalone units or weave them through a full year of instruction, pulling listening and improvisation activities into ensemble rehearsals or theory classes as needed. The listening, discussion, notation, improvisation, and performance components work equally well in classroom settings, small-group composition studios, or whole-school project contexts.

• generating and developing musical ideas through improvisation
• notating original compositions with increasing clarity and accuracy
• listening analytically to identify compositional techniques in existing works
• discussing and articulating creative choices in music
• arranging and performing student-composed work
• understanding form and structure through composing practice
• building confidence to take creative risks in sound