Category: Living Composers

Musicianship Monthly #15: The Contemporary Period

3/30/2022

The start of another month means it is time for a new Musicianship Monthly post!

What is "Musicianship Monthly?" Each month, I share links to free resources you can use to focus on a specific musicianship skill with your students. (Want to see past skills we have covered? Click HERE!)

This month, we will be continuing our exploration of music history with resources that highlight the Contemporary period! Keep reading for fun, accessible resources you can use to introduce your students to this interesting and varied period in music history....

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Living Composer Project--Month 4 Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

5/30/2019

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Read about the Living Composer project and download the worksheets HERE. Read the Month 1 Wrap-Up HERE. Read the Month 2 Wrap-Up HERE. Read the Month 3 Wrap-Up HERE.

Our semester-long "Living Composer Project" finally concluded this month with an awesome spring recital--and some very sweet letters written by my students to their composers of choice.

I blogged last month about the composers my students would be representing in our spring recital--and everyone did a wonderful job! I shared some of the facts that my students researched about the composers on the back of our recital program, and I think it was fun for the audience to learn a bit more about the composers behind the music that was featured.

Today I wanted to share a few of the letters my students wrote during our final month of this project:

Dear Jennifer Eklund,

My name is Ava, I am 11 years old, and I have been playing the piano for two years. My teacher has been helping me learn about living composers, and I have been learning your pieces "The Calm" and "Nightscape." My favorite thing about your music is how flowing it is and how you use the pedal. One question I have about your music is how do you compose it? Do you have people helping you?

Sincerely, Ava

***

Dear Randall Hartsell,

My name is Miles, I am 13 years old, and I have been playing the piano for five years. My teacher has been helping me learn about living composers, and I have been learning your piece "Raiders in the Night." My favorite thing about your music is that it is so calm and soothing. One question I have about your music is how do you come up with the notes?

Sincerely, Miles

***

Dear Kristen Allred,

My name is Annika, I am 12 years old, and I have been playing the piano for 2.5 years. My teacher has been helping me learn about living composers, and I have been learning your piece "The Prowling Panther." I love it! I learned how to play it a few weeks ago and I'm playing it for the recital! My favorite thing about your music is how fun it is. It is jumpy, like, fun to play and move around. One question I have about your music is how do you come up with your pieces? Do you have any advice for composing a piece? What is your favorite piece you ever wrote?

Sincerely, Annika

***

Final Thoughts on the Project

I really enjoyed seeing the excitement my students had for the music we worked on this semester, and it was enlightening to read in their own words the thoughts they had about the music and the questions they had for the composers. I was introduced to some new-to-me living composers by my students--and it was helpful to know what types of music my students are listening to outside of their piano lessons.

I will definitely continue to make more of an effort to point out to my students who composed the music they are playing, and to encourage my students to read about the composers whose music they are studying. I think it is important that students make the connection that music and art are products created by real people--and that as patrons of the arts we should make an effort to support this important work whenever possible.

It was also exciting for my students to have the opportunity to connect in person with the composers we studied. My students were thrilled to get responses from many of the composers they contacted. In fact, I heard from one teacher who adapted this project for her chorus classroom, and her class wrote and received a response from Alan Menken, of Disney music fame! Isn't it exciting that we live in a world where so much great music, and so many talented composers, are only a click of the mouse away?

What do you think? Did you use any of the "living composer project" materials with your students? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

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Living Composer Project--Month 3 Wrap-Up

4/12/2019

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Read about the Living Composer project and download the worksheets HERE. Read the Month 1 Wrap-Up HERE. Read the Month 2 Wrap-Up HERE.

This month was an important one for our living composer project, as all of my students selected their pieces for our spring recital in May! Each student is playing at least one piece by a living composer. Here are the composers that will be represented on our upcoming recital, grouped by genre:

Pedagogical Composers

Kristen Allred
Jennifer Eklund
Nancy Faber
Martha Mier
Ross Petot
Chrissy Ricker

Film Composers

Klaus Badelt
Alan Menken
Richard Sherman
Charles Strouse
John Williams
Michiru Yamane
Hans Zimmer

Pop and Electronic Music Composers

Deadmau5 (Joel Thomas Zimmerman)
Marshmello (Christopher Comstock)

I am also pleased that two of my students have asked to perform their own compositions at the recital. It will be fun to highlight the music of student composers, too!

This month, students also listened to at least four pieces by one of the living composers they have studied this spring. I am hoping this will build some excitement about potential new repertoire for the summer.

So, what is on the list for next month, our final month of the living composer project? We will:

Write a letter to a living composer we have studied this spring. I will be encouraging my students to write to the pedagogical composers they have studied, since we have a better chance of reaching them via their websites or publishing companies.
Perform our pieces at the spring recital. I will be including some of the facts we learned about these composers on our recital program, as well as sharing any responses we receive from our composer letters.
Listen to a piece by a living art music composer. We have mainly focused on the music of pedagogical, film, and pop music composers during this project, since they are the most accessible to my students. However, I think it would be fun to share a more advanced modern piece by a living composer with my students--perhaps something by Nikolai Kapustin, William Bolcom, or Lowell Liebermann. Any other suggestions for a modern concert piano piece that would be fun for students to watch? I'd love to hear your ideas!

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Living Composer Project--Month 2 Wrap-Up

3/7/2019

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Read about the Living Composer project and download the worksheets HERE. Read the Month 1 Wrap-Up HERE.

This month, we continued our studio-wide "living composer project" by researching a couple of our favorite living composers. In hindsight, it shouldn't surprise me that my students were most interested in researching the pop and film composers they have learned about. This led to a few pretty funny debates. (Is Harry Styles of One Direction really an important living composer? LOL!)

However my students did uncover some interesting facts about many of the composers we have been studying, including:

John Williams got his start in the music business as a jazz pianist and studio musician. He performed in nightclubs and recorded soundtracks for composers such as Henry Mancini.
Koji Kondo, video game composer, is also a pianist and once performed live onstage with the band Imagine Dragons.
Deadmau5, DJ and electronic composer, owns a $5 million home in Canada. (A very interesting fact to the 10-12 year old demographic!) His real name is Joel Thomas Zimmerman.
Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (of Frozen fame) co-wrote the songs for the movies Frozen and Coco, and they are married with two children.
Alan Menken has written the music for many Disney movies, including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. He has won two Academy Awards for his music.

It was a bit more difficult to find facts about the pedagogical composers we are studying--after all, most of them don't have Wikipedia pages or fan sites! However, we did find a few fun facts:

Nancy and Randall Faber, husband and wife team, live in Michigan and have written over 300 publications for piano students.
Martha Mier is 82 and lives in Florida. She has written hundreds of piano pieces for students; the most well-known is her "Jazz, Rags, and Blues" series.
Jennifer Eklund lives in southern California and has a master's degree in historical musicology.

This month we also did lots of sight-reading by living composers in our lessons. One of my favorite ways to work on sight-reading is to play duets--so I pulled together a few fun duet books to use with my students this month. Here are the ones we used (click on the picture for more information about any of these books):

"I Like Duets, Book 1" by Valerie Roth Roubos.

This is fun, easy book of equally-leveled duets that sound a bit contemporary. My students especially liked "Chipmunk Chatter."

"Ready to Rock" by Chrissy Ricker.

Hey, I'm a living composer, too! I enjoyed using one of my own duet books with my students this month. This book has elementary solos with teacher duets. "Showdown" and "Rockin' Out" were the favorites with my students this month.

"Dancing with my Shadow" by Lisa Donovan Lukas.

This is a lovely collection of elementary pieces with teacher duets. My students enjoyed sight-reading the title piece, "Dancing with my Shadow."

"Simple Sensations" by Robyn Fehrenbacher.

This is another great option for elementary students with teacher duets. My students enjoyed sight-reading the happy song "Island Dance" from this collection.

This coming month, each student will be choosing one composer to focus on and will play and listen to several of this composer's works. We will also be choosing music for our spring recital this month--so I am hoping to have a wide variety of living composers represented on the program!

What do you think? Do you have your students research the composers they are studying? Have you discovered any new-to-you living composers recently? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

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Living Composer Project--Month 1 Wrap-Up

2/7/2019

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Read all about the Living Composer project HERE.

The first month of my studio-wide "living composer project" has been a productive one! So far, my students have:

1. Completed worksheets that list the living composers they have studied, and those whose music they hear on a daily basis.

2. Had a fun group class about living composer John Williams (see the lesson plan HERE).

3. Started a list of living composers whose music they would like to study this spring.

One of the most interesting things I am finding by doing this project is that my students often don't give much thought to who composes their music. Some of my younger students needed help finding the composer's name on their sheet music. And most of the time, my students didn't know who wrote the music for their favorite movie or video game until they looked it up. It is interesting to see how often students just take music for granted, without stopping to think that a real person wrote the notes they are hearing or seeing on the page! It has definitely given me some food for thought on how our society often views music as an abundant, unlimited resource, rather than an art form that requires talent and skill to produce. (stepping off my soapbox now!)

I thought it would be fun to share the composers that ended up on our worksheets this month. Since most of my students are elementary through intermediate-level, there were lots of living pedagogical composers whose works they have studied this school year, including:

Nancy and Randall Faber
Dennis Alexander
Martha Mier
Jennifer Linn
Mike Springer
Ross Petot
Jennifer Eklund
Sarah Reaser O'Brien
Stacy Fahrion
Randall Hartsell

Topping the list of composers that students heard on a daily basis were film and video game composers, including:

Koji Kondo (Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers)
Jeremy Soule (Elder Scrolls)
Daniel Rosenfeld (Minecraft)
John Williams
Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Frozen)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton)
Alan Menken (Disney movies)
Joe Hisaishi (anime)
Hans Zimmer
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Philip Glass (both film and contemporary classical music)

The most interesting category on our worksheet was the pop music category--as my students were surprised to learn that their favorite pop singers often didn't write their own music (at least, not without lots of help!). However, there were a few pop artists that came up on our lists who actually wrote many (if not all) of their own songs:

Tyler Joseph (Twenty One Pilots)
Elton John
Deadmau5 (electronic music)
Adam Levine (Maroon 5)
Dan Reynolds (Imagine Dragons)
Justin Timberlake
Bruno Mars

In February, we will start the second "Living Composer" project worksheet, and each of my students will be choosing two composers to research further. I am excited to learn what facts they turn up about these composers next month!

Students will also each be playing music by a new-to-them living composer in February. I have pulled together all of my studio copies and digital music and have created a little "living composer library" that we will be using in our lessons for sight-reading and quick-study pieces. It has been fun for me to go through my library and gather together music by composers that I haven't taught very often--so I think this will be a learning experience for me, too!

What do you think? Do you teach your students about living composers? Who are your favorites? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

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Musicianship Monthly #15: The Contemporary Period

Living Composer Project--Month 4 Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

Living Composer Project--Month 3 Wrap-Up

Living Composer Project--Month 2 Wrap-Up

Living Composer Project--Month 1 Wrap-Up

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