Teaching Kids to Compose

Music composition can be one of the most inspirational and enjoyable activities to teach, but it is often neglected in music classes. With the pressure of preparing students for performances, those standards that aren’t on display to the public can become a lower priority. Personally, I also struggle with feeling less qualified to teach composition than the other standards. I’ve taken countless instrument lessons, I perform regularly, and I’ve taken classes to learn the history of the music that I play and how to analyze it. Yet, like most of us who chose any musical path other than a composition major, I managed to get through my many years of music education writing almost no music myself. Despite and because of this flaw in my own training, I’m doing what I can to make composition accessible to even my youngest students. Here is some of what I’ve learned through teaching my elementary students to write music.


Maia Hamann currently teaches music at Holdingford Elementary, grades K-5. You can read all of her blog posts here. View our entire portfolio of educational resources on our Music for Learning page.

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