Camp: “So, You Want To Be A Composer?”

“So, You Want To Be A Composer?” is a fun, creative camp designed to inspire and equip your students to compose their own pieces of music!  Students will leave camp knowing how to make a piece of music reflect its title, use motives, organize a piece using a form, and much more.  This camp is full of music listening, music making, and music composing.   Read more about when I held this camp in the summer of 2012 and view a peek at a student composition.

When you purchase, “So, You Want To Be A Composer?,” here is what you will receive:

1. The complete Lesson Plans (21 pages), clearly outlining (with accompanying photos) what to do each day.  The appendices at the end include a list of alternative classical repertoire to study, instructions for making a musical instrument each day, and instructions for setting up a water xylophone.
2. The “Elements of a Great Composition” workbook (16 pages) to print for each student, covering topics like motives/themes, form, accompaniment styles, and proper notation.
3. An editable “Folder Cover” file (Microsoft Word docx), so you can insert the year and your studio’s name.  This sheet is for students to cut out and glue to the front of their camp folder (which will holds the workbook mentioned above).
4. 6 “Quick Composition” activities.
5. Over 15 varieties of staff paper.
6. …and more!

Here are some specifics about how the camp is designed:

• Meets for 4 days, for 3 hours each day.
• Intended for 1st or 2nd year students (including complete beginners); however, the lessons plans are easily adjustable for more advanced students.
• A group of 3-4 students would not be too small.  A maximum of 8 students is recommended, due to the fact that you will need to borrow enough keyboards for the majority of your students to be able to be use them simultaneously during the free composition time.
• At the end of the week, parents are invited for a Composer Showcase, where we let everyone browse the compositions and then enjoy a mini-recital of some of our favorite compositions from the week!

The various worksheets and composition activities included in this camp have an added benefit:  Many of the activities included in this lesson plan could be used during studio group classes, or even with some of your private students who are interested in composition.

Have you always wanted encourage and help your students to compose their own music, but have been unsure where to start?  The “So, You Want To Be A Composer?” camp just might be the solution for you!

Instructions:

• After purchase, follow the instructions to download and save the file onto your computer’s hard drive. The file will download as an archived folder.  Unarchive the folder (your computer should do this automatically) and then you will be able open the folder to browse all the files inside.
• The first file is the lesson plans.  The other files are various worksheets, composition activities, sample compositions, and staff paper — all mentioned in the lesson plans.

Questions?  Read the Terms of Use here.