I built this website because I was thrown into a situation where I had to teach composition to high school students. What in the world was I supposed to teach them? How do you teach composition? Can you teach composition?

Creativity is such a personal thing and people write interesting things by being personal. So it felt very strange for me to impose my way of thinking onto somebody else. Who am I to impart my aesthetics onto others? While on some level it’s unavoidable, my goal as a teacher is for each student to figure out his or her own path.

Here is what I can do, I can provide enough of a baseline to get people started in if not the “right” direction, at least direction. Composing is hard, and when you’re young, thinking about what music is is well, hard. So this site provides certain methods for thinking about composition.

My style:

I am a teacher that finds it absolutely necessary to start from the beginning of a subject and make sure everyone understands the material. If core fundamentals are unclear, how can you expect to build from a shaky base? Surely everything would collapse. My approach to teaching one of these composition subjects looks like this: An encompassing approach of subject, history, analysis, creativity, and then “doing it-finding a way” to make the lesson your own.

Lastly, I would like to say I created this site to be used by everyone. I will continue to add different composition ideas and branches to this website. If you have a cool idea that you think would benefit the young composer I am all ears! please contact me with any and all ideas.

Thank you,

Katie Fellman

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