Creativity through music composition

Learning music composition at an early age significantly boosts a child's cognitive and creative development by strengthening neural connections, improving problem-solving, and fostering critical thinking. It enhances social skills through collaboration, promotes emotional expression and regulation, and builds confidence. Additionally, composing music helps develop mathematical and literacy skills through pattern recognition and provides a lifelong appreciation for music.

 Cognitive and intellectual benefits

• Enhances brain development: Learning to compose strengthens neural pathways, especially the corpus callosum that connects the brain's hemispheres. This leads to improved problem-solving, critical thinking, and overall intellectual capacity.
• Improves problem-solving skills: Composition is a form of creative problem-solving where children experiment with musical ideas and decide what works best. The process of decoding musical patterns, adapting new information, and coordinating multiple tasks builds a child's executive function and analytical thinking.
• Builds pattern recognition: Music is built on patterns of rhythm and melody. Early exposure to these structures helps children recognize patterns, a foundational skill for early math and language development.
• Strengthens memory and concentration: To compose, children must remember musical structures, rhythms, and melodies. This process exercises and improves both working and long-term memory, as well as focus and concentration.
• Boosts language and literacy: Music and language share similar neural pathways. Engaging with the rhythm and structure of music can enhance a child's vocabulary, pronunciation, and reading skills. 

Creative and emotional benefits

• Fosters creativity and innovation: Composition gives children a direct avenue for original thought and self-expression, fostering imaginative play and "out-of-the-box" thinking. It encourages them to experiment with new sounds and musical structures.
• Develops emotional expression and regulation: Music is a powerful outlet for emotions that children may not yet be able to verbalize. Composing allows them to explore and communicate their feelings in a safe, constructive way, which helps build emotional intelligence.
• Cultivates self-confidence: Completing a musical composition instills a strong sense of pride and accomplishment. This boosts a child's self-confidence, self-worth, and resilience in the face of challenges. 

Social and physical benefits

• Improves fine motor skills: For children who compose using an instrument, the act of writing and playing music requires intricate movements and coordination between the hands and eyes. This enhances fine motor skills and dexterity.
• Promotes social skills: Group musical activities teach children valuable social skills like collaboration, cooperation, and empathy. As they compose or improvise together, children learn to listen to others and contribute their individual ideas to create a harmonious whole.
• Strengthens a sense of belonging: Collaborative music-making connects children with their peers and creates a shared identity. In diverse settings, music can create an inclusive environment where children can share their cultures and form strong relationships.  

Are you interested in the ultimate source of written music? This source: the composer. Come learn the art of music composition at the Evergreen Conservatory of Music. All levels are welcome - whether you’re beginning for your first melody or creating a tone-row matrix for your 29th symphony! 

Workshop Description: The Intro to Composition workshops are an introduction and mini trial in the art of composition. It provides a clear understanding of what composers do and the multiple skills they must learn to create music. Students will get to compose a melody of their own and gain resources to continue to explore composition.

We offer composition lessons and courses that will expose you to the joy and challenge of musical creativity and the infinite aspects of what composers learn and consider. Lessons are usually hour-long, weekly, and one-on-one where students get individualized attention in fostering their voice as a composer while courses are more general, per-semester, and topics may vary.

At the Evergreen Conservatory of Music, composition is taught with strong fundamentals, and we employ lots of practice in the composition process. This process includes listening and analysis of other composers’ works, hand-writing manuscripts, careful, detailed, and intentional notation, exploration and proficiency of music notation software and other programs, and importantly, composers will have the opportunity and resources to have their work performed and recorded - a result of learning how to create parts, finding musicians, rehearsing, and coordinating a performance.

Composers have a tricky job because they need to know how to synthesize multiple areas of musical knowledge including theory, orchestration, instrumentation, arranging, performance practice, interpretation, and education in a variety of ways. They need to be aware and in control of the nearly infinite musical elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, form, etc., and be creative all at the same time. 

Still not sure if composition is what you’re looking for? Ask yourself these questions:

Are you “playing around” with music at home, trying new things, changing the octave, changing the sound pre-set on your keyboard, or composing music in your head?

These are signs of creativity!

Do you want to compose music that clearly expresses yourself, your ideas, and your emotions?

Composition is an incredible tool to express your inner mind!

Do you feel a special feeling when you listen to certain music and crave to recreate that feeling?

Music moves us and sometimes we want to move others!

Are you obsessed with the latest hit songs, epic movie music, cool video game soundtrack, or love a particular tune and don’t know why?

Composition is a powerful way to “get behind the music” and learn from what other composers wrote and you too can work to create an epic of your own.

Do you want to understand music on a deeper level that gives you a powerful background that translates to other areas of music (performing, listening, conducting, teaching, etc.)?

Composition helps you expand your musical understanding and opens your mind to elements of music that otherwise remain untouched for the majority of musicians!

Music Software

The Evergreen Conservatory of Music does not favor or disfavor any particular music software. Many institutions are particular toward one software, but this is problematic to the creative process and can hinder a student’s ability to thrive, explore, and become well-rounded in their skills. ECM students are encouraged to explore and experiment with different software and discover the pros and cons of each and find which one will provide them the most powerful avenue to translate their musical ideas.

Composers have an interesting relationship with the music software industry as many composer’s livelihoods are dependent on these software. Throughout the last several decades, several software has become obsolete or is discontinuing. However, strong composers should not feel bound by these software and should have the training and sense of liberty to compose without being at the mercy of software companies.

Examples of these software programs include:

Finale

Dorico

Sibelius

MuseScore

Lilypond

OpenMusic

ProTools

Digital Performer

Garage Band

Reason

Getting your music performed

Writing the music is only half the battle a composer must fight. They also need to get their music performed and this is no easy task. The ECM is a well-connected school with a plethora of professional and skilled musicians that composers can tap into and have reliable, quality musicians who can perform their music.

Tips and Tricks to help guide you

Try to build this routine:

1. Compose something every day. 
2. Listen to music every day. 
3. Imitate other composers by writing in their style. 
4. Try other styles and forms of composition.
5. Play your pieces for friends.

• Composing Music can be an extremely rewarding endeavor. Whatever melodies, rhythms, and images a musician has in their head. The process of bringing it out encompasses many elements coming together, usually, in some kind of harmony. 
• Composition can be a very creative, ‘in the moment’, type of art, sometimes starting with just a simple inspiration or idea. Through development and refinement, a piece of Music begins to emerge. Sometimes with planned results, other times, musical ideas can evolve into unexpected new directions, waiting to be heard. 
• Although not always necessary, a basic knowledge of Music Theory fundamentals can be quite helpful when it comes to composing. Including, for example, recognizing scale patterns and key signatures, to understanding beats, rhythm, and tempo, and structure.
• Proficiency in the Instrument choice for Composing, can be another consideration. Increasing technique and other skills can be beneficial when working on and developing ideas in real time.
• The ability to Record during Composition can be immensely helpful. Whether by traditional transcription, tablature, or modern recording techniques. Any method will aid in the progress of music development and offer an additional perspective.
• Remember, don’t feel like you need to ‘force’ the Music when creating.  The music is already in us. As Composers, we just need to give it the right time and space and allow it to flow.

Music improvisation Program

Cognitive development

• Encourages creative and divergent thinking. Improvisation is a practice in "thinking outside the box," where children learn to generate multiple original musical ideas rather than just one correct answer. It engages the creative centers of the brain that help with self-expression and forming new connections.  Improvisation encourages children to think flexibly and create new musical ideas on the spot, promoting originality in their music-making. Improvisation activates various cognitive functions and improves real-time problem-solving and decision-making abilities. 
• Improves listening skills. Improvising with others requires deep, active listening to respond in real-time, sharpening a child's ability to hear how different notes, rhythms, and harmonies interact.
• Enhances memory. Improvisation helps develop a child's working memory as they learn to recall musical motifs, harmonic progressions, and other musical patterns to create coherent, expressive phrases on the fly.
• Strengthens executive functions. Exercises used in musical and theatrical improvisation, such as quick-fire games and scene work, train a child's ability to focus, organize thoughts, and control impulses. This helps improve cognitive flexibility and working memory. 

Emotional and social development

• Fosters self-expression. By improvising, children use music to articulate their immediate emotions and feelings in a healthy, creative, and non-verbal outlet. This strengthens emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Music improvisation offers a pure form of creative expression, helping children explore and manage emotions. 
• Builds confidence. Performing spontaneous musical ideas in a supportive environment helps children overcome the fear of making mistakes. As they gain confidence in their creative abilities, their self-esteem grows.
• Promotes collaboration. Group improvisation teaches children how to collaborate and communicate non-verbally as they take turns and bounce ideas off one another. This fosters teamwork, respect for others, and empathy. 
• Creates a positive attitude toward learning. When improvisation is introduced as a fun, low-pressure activity, children learn to associate exploring new ideas and taking risks with a positive experience. This can foster a lifelong love of learning. 

Musical and technical benefits

• Develops musical intuition and ear training. Learning improvisation from the beginning helps a child internalize the building blocks of music, like scales and chord progressions, through sound rather than just notation. This strengthens their musical ear and lays a solid foundation for more advanced playing.
• Supports learning to read music. For young students, combining rote learning with improvisation can ease the sometimes-daunting transition to reading sheet music. Their developed musical intuition allows them to focus on deciphering the notation while still maintaining their musicality.
• Encourages holistic musicianship. Students who improvise learn to understand music as a language, rather than just a set of written rules. This creates a deeper connection to the music they play, even when performing from a score. 

 Transferable Skills

• Language skills: Music and language share common structures, and improvisation in music can help develop skills relevant to speech, indicating a broader transfer of learning to other domains. 
• Improved traditional musicianship: A deep understanding of improvisation can make a classical performer more sensitive to musical communication and more aware of the nuance of sound, even when reading a score