Recommendation Letters – How Students are Evaluated

At the end of last semester, from about mid-November to mid-December, it seemed to me that I was writing more student recommendation/reference letters than usual — which is fine, of course — but, as I was doing so, it occurred to me (as it does every year) that, although every student is unique, they tend to fall into different categories:

1. Those that are good at everything; 
2. Those that are good at some things, and pretty good at others (e.g., good at composition, okay-but-not-great in theory and history);
3. Those that are pretty good at 1-2 things, but fairly weak in others (e.g., pretty good at composition, but rather weak in theory, aural skills, writing skills, etc.);
4. Those that are really good at one thing (e.g., composition), but really weak at others (e.g., theory, history, aural skills, and writing); and, of course,
5. Those that don't fit into any of the above categories, such as students who are just average or even weak at everything, or almost everything. 

If I am asked to write a letter, the academic areas on which can I comment are the ones that I teach, namely music theory  and composition. But, as you can see in the list below, professors are often asked to rate students in a surprisingly-large number of areas that go far beyond specific academic disciplines, and so I thought it might be useful to list these areas, and, more generally, provide information on the evaluation process for anyone that may wish to request such a letter at any point in their future.

If you are in a Bachelor of Music programme and there is even a remote chance that you might apply to graduate school upon completing your degree, today's post may have some useful information for you. However, if you have no interest in this topic, just ignore it; I promise to get back to composition-related topics in my next post!

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Asking for a reference letter
 • Don’t be shy about asking a professor to write reference letters; it is a part of our job, like correcting/grading, office hours, extra help for students that seek it, committee work, research/composition/performing, and of course, teaching. We do not have to write a reference letter just because you ask for one – sometimes, a professor might decline your request – but most of the time I don't mind writing these letters, as long as you were a good student.

• Be aware, however, that it takes time – for me, typically about 2 hours – to write a thorough reference letter.  

Why does it take so long?
→ Part of that time is spent going through a student’s transcript carefully (which I request from the student), reviewing how the student did in my courses (which involves opening the spreadsheet files for every course taken with me in order to see the student’s results in all parts of the course evaluation scheme), and ranking that student’s final mark in relation to the class (e.g., 3rd out of 34 students), because some graduate schools ask for that information, and if they don’t, I usually provide it anyway.

→ Time is also spent listing all of the positive attributes I can think of for that student, particularly those that I believe would be relevant to studying composition or theory at the graduate level.

→ I also list any weaknesses or concerns I have about the student, because admissions committees want a balanced and honest assessment; if I describe a student in only positive terms, but the transcript reveals that the student has a 75% average over the most recent 1-2 years, then it seems unlikely that an admissions committee would take my letter seriously; a B+ average is nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s not an A average, and, in my opinion, a professor's recommendation letter should expand on the evidence found in a student's transcript without making claims that are unsupported in the transcript.

What Student Attributes are Evaluated?
→ Professors are often asked to rate, and comment on, specific personal attributes or character traits, such as (these are taken directly from various evaluation forms I have seen):

• Ability – All around
• Ability to complete tasks on time (i.e., by a deadline)
• Ability to work under pressure
• Ability to work independently/Willingness to take responsibility for learning
• Academic potential
• Academic preparation/Demonstrated academic ability
• Achievement
• Attendance
• Communication skills – Oral
• Communication skills – Written
• Curiosity – Willingness to explore new approaches, ideas, particularly those that may fall outside the student’s comfort zone
• Focus (does the student stay focused on the task at hand, or are they easily distracted, which can lead to failure to complete tasks, or failure to complete them on time)
• Industriousness – Capacity to work hard
• Initiative
• Intellectual capacity
• Leadership
• Likelihood that my institution would accept the student, if we had a comparable programme (this is a strange category; do some professors write, "we would not accept this student into our graduate programme, but I think they'd be perfect for your institution," which implies that our standards are higher than yours?)
• Likelihood that the student will complete the degree
• Organization - Planning
• Originality/Willingness to “think outside the box”
• Creativity/Talent
• Persistence 
• Problem solving
• Punctuality
• Research ability
• Response to constructive criticism
• Teaching ability (if known) 
• Teamwork (work well in a group)

The rating system varies, but it often consists of a series of clickable boxes assigned to percentile values, such as top 5%, top 10%, top 20%, top 50%, lower than top 50%, and "no basis for judgment." The professor clicks on the appropriate box, in their assessment, for each category.

Universities typically ask for a letter, in addition to asking the professor to rate the student in a number of categories, as above, but no university with which I am familiar asks that the student be assessed in every  category listed above; the above list is compiled from a variety of different universities' lists. Also, some universities have comment boxes in their on-line recommendation forms that allow professors to add a sentence or two explaining our rating in that particular category.

So What?
I have no idea how much weight is placed on this aspect of the evaluation process – I suspect that the above categories matter, but probably not as much as the student’s transcript, composition portfolio, and recommendation letters. At the very least, however, these categories tell us something about what graduate schools value in prospective students.

→ How would you assess your level in each of the above categories? Most people have at least a few weak areas; if you can identify your own, I encourage you to work at them so that they become strengths.

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How to request a letter
When requesting a letter from a professor, give them lots of lead time, and provide all necessary information. More specifically:

• Make your request at least two weeks in advance, because of the time it takes to write these letters. If this is not possible for some reason, then make your request at least one week in advance, but be aware that professors are generally pretty maxed-out in terms of demands on their time, and if you don’t give us enough time, we may not be able to write the letter you request. 
• Make your request in writing, as well as in person (if feasible). The reason for this is that I don’t necessarily remember every request, but if you put it in an E-mail, then I have something to remind me. Confirming this request in person is mostly a social nicety, but it may also give you a sense of the degree to which the professor is willing to write you a positive letter.
• If you are asked to include a composition portfolio, ask your composition teachers for their opinions on what to include, and make as many of the changes/improvements suggested by your instructor as possible. If applying for a theory master's and they require the submission of a theory essay, ask your theory teachers for suggestions and corrections on any essay you plan to submit.
• Provide the professor with an up-to-date transcript, for the reasons cited above. The transcript can be a series of screen shots taken on your computer from your “university self-service” portal, or a PDF of the actual transcript.
• Provide a list of every course you took with the professor, and the semester in which you took that course.
• List any relevant achievements that might strengthen your case, e.g., Senior Rose Bowl Winner, Kiwanis Festival of (what region or city), Gower Band Terra Nova Competition Winner, etc., with the date(s) of the awards. You could include non-musical achievements as well, e.g., cycled from St. John’s, NL, to Victoria, BC, April-August, 2014... If I think they reflect  strengths in your character, I might mention them. And yes, one of our students did this, which I feel said a lot about the type of person they are (tenacious, able to achieve difficult goals, etc.)!
• Indicate in writing every school to which you’d like a letter sent.
• Include the submission deadlines for each school.
• Indicate in writing the specific graduate programmes to which you are applying (e.g., MA in music theory, MMus in composition, etc.).

Electronic Submission?
Most schools allow professors to submit their letters electronically; I much prefer this, so if that’s an option, please choose it. I would guess most professors find E-submissions most convenient, but double check with the professor to see if they prefer to submit the old-fashioned way (i.e., a hard copy via "snail mail").

On the pros and cons of “Gentle Reminders”
To the best of my knowledge, universities automatically send applicants an electronic confirmation message every time they receive a recommendation letter for that student (UPDATE: Maybe it's a glitch in their systems, but they occasionally don't, according to a student who just contacted me… However, I think they are all supposed to do this). If the deadline is near, and you have not received such a notice, here’s what I suggest:

Send the professor a “friendly reminder,” or “gentle nudge” a few days before the submission deadline . For most professors, the workload tends to be heavy and incessant all semester (I take no days off from before the start of a semester to the point when we submit final marks for each course), but particularly so towards the end of a semester. Also, if you have, say, eight students who each want three reference letters, that’s twenty-four references; that's a lot of references, and it is possible to miss some. Not only that, but E-mail is a somewhat inefficient way to communicate, in that every day our inboxes are bombarded with SPAM and “noise” (messages that are not SPAM, but clutter up our in-boxes), so it is easy for the occasional legit E-mail (one that requires a response) to get buried among the debris.

I know that not everyone appreciates reminders, however – When I was an undergraduate student, I saw a professor in the hallway one day and reminded him as politely as I could that the deadline for that letter was that day, only to have the professor blow up at me and proclaim, in an outdoors (not indoors) voice, “Look! If I say I’ll write you a reference letter, I’ll write you that g**d*** letter!”

It occurred to me that I might have destroyed any hope I had of going to graduate school, which I found rather daunting at the time. In today’s world, however, this kind of situation can be mostly avoided, because a thoughtfully-worded gentle reminder via E-mail is unlikely to elicit such a rude response. Speaking only for myself, I don’t mind gentle reminders at all; in fact, I often appreciate them.

Trust the Process; How do you know the professor will write a good letter?
Speaking of daunting, it can feel a bit scary to request a letter and then trust that the professor has written a good letter. But, once your request has been made and the professor has agreed to recommend you, I would suggest trusting the process. A conscientious professor should tell you if they can’t write you a good letter, rather than agree to write a letter, and then write only negative things about you. I suspect that most professors adhere to this ethical code, but you obviously can't assume that every professor does.

I have turned down requests to write recommendation letters on very few occasions — when I do, I always suggest that the students find other professors to write recommendation letters —  for one of three reasons:

(i) The student's request came too close to the submission deadline. This is just a practical matter, not personal — requests often come at the busiest time of a semester, and there are times when I cannot set aside all the other work I have to spend two hours writing a letter that is due the day after I got the request. On the other hand, if I have recently written a letter for you, and you ask me to send it to more universities a day or two before a deadline, this is less problematic. It still can take a little more time than you might expect, particularly when the original letter needs to be modified in any way (such as if the original letter needs to be updated due to new information), but if I can do it, I will. But I'd still prefer 1-2 weeks notice, of course;

(ii) I don’t know the student well enough to say anything really positive about her/him; e.g., they only took one course with me, and it was a few years ago, and the student did not get a very good result in that course. Or perhaps they were an average student but they never came to see me at an office hour, and they never said much in class, so I don't feel like I know the student very well;

(iii) I know the student pretty well, but what I know about them is not positive… Perhaps they took several courses with me, but did not do very well in any of them, or they were rude/disrespectful on multiple occasions, or they skipped classes and/or were late on multiple occasions, or they did not complete  assignments or quizzes on multiple occasions, or they committed academic dishonesty (the most common example of this is students collaborating with each other on assignments), or they generally disregarded my compositional advice and suggestions, etc. If a student has shown little indication that they are willing to be taught, why would anyone else want to teach them?

To be clear, I’m not talking about an occasional disagreement; these are not unusual in teaching, and I don't mind them as long as the discussion is respectful. I’m referring more to an on-going and troublesome pattern of behaviour, which is extraordinarily rare; I think I have encountered only about three such cases in thirty years of teaching.

The only time I recall declining a recommendation letter request for reason (iii) above involved a student who was extraordinarily sullen and rude. Don't get me wrong — I have encountered occasional instances of rudeness over the years, but this particular student really stood out from the rest (and not in a good way!), so much so that other students complained to me in private about the student’s behaviour. I was therefore surprised when the student asked me for a recommendation — did they think they were somehow accumulating karmic good-will credits while engaging in blatantly-disrespectful behaviour? — and so I suggested that the student would be better off asking someone else for a recommendation.

I don't hold grudges, or try to undermine students in any way. Had I decided to write a letter for this person, I would have found positive things to say about her/him (no matter who you are, I can usually find positive things to say about you, and this student was definitely smart and talented), but I would have also had to mention the problematic behaviours that I felt would sabotage their chances of succeeding in a graduate programme, which is why I suggested they ask someone else.

Not sure about applying?
If you want to go to graduate school but are thinking that perhaps you ought not to apply because your marks aren't great, or your composition portfolio is not strong enough, I would suggest applying anyway, because you never know what the outcome will be. Sometimes, average students (IMO) have been accepted into master's programmes, while stronger students have been rejected. You don't know the circumstance or criteria used in the evaluation of your application; in some years, and in some universities, you might be in competition with sixty other students for six spots, while in other years or different universities you might only be in competition with eight other students for six available spots. I was at a graduate admissions committee recently in which we rejected a couple of the applicants because they had 72-75 averages and below-average audition scores. We then learned that they had both been accepted at a larger (and better known, frankly) university, presumably because this university had admission quotas to fill, and these applicants met their minimum admission standards.

If graduate schools reject you, and you are not willing to give up on your dream, find a way to turn this into a positive experience: Identify your weaknesses, work hard on improving in those areas, and then apply again. For composition, this might entail writing more pieces, perhaps longer and more substantial, perhaps for larger ensembles, or written more idiomatically for the instruments involved, or exploring new techniques, or providing more score detail, or better recordings, or just writing better pieces; most of us acknowledge that our early compositions are not as good as later compositions. If you want to do a Master's in composition but you had some weak results in music theory classes, explore the possibility of taking some of them again, this time working harder or more consistently than you did previously, in order to gain a better understanding of the material, and demonstrate that you are capable of getting good marks in theory.

List of Positive Attributes
It is easiest students to write strongly-suportive recommendations for students with the following qualities:

1. At or near the top of every composition course they took with me;
2. Developing into very good composers — this is slightly different than #1, because a student's course grade can be near the top of the composition class by getting full marks in all the extra-compositional assessment areas — excellent preparation, excellent contributions to class discussions,  making the required number of thoughtful composition blog comments — while producing compositions that are pretty good (B+, A-), but not extremely good (A, A+);
3. At or near the top of every theory course they took with me;
4. Actively curious about new music; they seek out new scores to study and new music to hear, and are excited by new discoveries;
5. Respond well to compositional suggestions, which means they are willing to try new things without pre-judging them, and to embrace at least some of them;
6. Do all their work on time with a minimum of excuses for gaps in productivity;
7. Do more work than most other students;
8. Are ambitious – I ask for a short character piece, and they write three; or, they write a piece for orchestra with zero training in orchestration; or, I ask for a string quartet of at least 4-5 minutes, and they write a 15-minute string quartet;
9. Have a great attitude; and
10. Participate regularly in class, and, in particular, they are skilled in giving constructive criticism to fellow students in our composition seminars.

If I were assigning a score of 1 (= terrible!) to 10 (= whatever is better than excellent!) to each of the above qualities, I feel confident in saying that I have never had a student who I would have rated as a 10 in every category.

However, I have had occasional composition students who are strong in all of these areas, meaning I would perhaps rate them as an 8 or higher in every category. Such students tend to be accepted into graduate programmes, provided they didn't only apply to the most selective universities, like Indiana or Yale (but some of our students have gone to Indiana University and Yale, for example, so why not you?).

What do you do if you are pretty good at composition, but pretty weak in, say, theory?
 Most students are strong in some of the areas, but not all, and in many cases such students have been accepted into graduate programmes. Some students are very good at composition, but very weak in music theory; this can be a deal-breaker for some universities, since a graduate programme in composition usually requires music theory courses as well. I still suggest that such students apply to graduate schools (because you never know what might transpire), and, if not accepted, then consider doing extra work in music theory (like re-taking music theory courses to try to obtain better results), and then applying again in the following year. Realistically, however, this does not give students much of an opportunity to improve their standing in theory courses, since applications are often due by the end of the fall semester, which would give a graduating student only one semester in which to demonstrate an improvement. But, if you didn't get in to any Master's programmes and you are average to weak in music theory (at least according to the marks you got), then it's worth a shot.

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If you are reading this in the early years of your academic studies, the clear conclusion to draw is to become as strong as possible in every possible area. It starts with taking every course seriously, and not falling into the trap of making excuses for poor results in, say, theory courses, such as, "this is nothing but a set of rules for OLD music; I want to make NEW music, and break any rules I wish!"

This, strange as it sounds, accurately describes my mindset in my early years of music study. When I started taking music theory, I didn't see the point of it, and thought it had nothing to do with the music I wanted to write. Consequently, I failed grades 3 and 5 harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), and didn't do very well in grade 4 harmony either. After about two years of poor results at the RCM, I started studying privately with an excellent composition teacher, Dr. Sam Dolin, who made me re-do music theory all over again, from the beginning, and, while I resented it a bit at first, he made it interesting, fascinating, and relevant for me, and my love for music theory – which is, basically, learning how music works – began at that point, and has never abated. And yes, I got better at it.

You can get off to a bad start in something, and end up becoming very good at that thing; in my case I just needed a combination of a good teacher and an attitude readjustment.

What not to do!
Do not ask a professor to write you a recommendation letter, and then change your mind and, basically, fire them because you have suddenly become worried that they might say something negative or even lukewarm about you. If you ask a professor to write you a letter, and if they say yes, then just continue to work hard and be productive and respectful, and trust that the professor will advocate your behalf. I realize that not knowing exactly what a professor will write about you can trigger insecurities, but, again, you have to trust that, if a professor agrees to write a letter on your behalf, they believe in you have your best interests at heart.

This actually happened to me once. A student I knew very well because I had taught them in numerous courses, asked me to write various recommendation letters for them, so I did, and as I always do, I wrote very positively about the areas in which the student was strong. This student belonged to category 3 or 4, from the listed categories at the top of this post, meaning they were good in one area – very good, in my opinion – but average or even weak in some others. The student was not accepted anywhere.

Although I was disappointed on the student's behalf, the rejections did not come as a big surprise to me – for the most part, you have to be good or very good in many areas (including composition and theory) in order to be accepted to a graduate programme in composition (although I know of a few students who were accepted to graduate schools when they were strong at composition, and only slightly above average at theory) – because I know that, no matter how positive a letter I write on your behalf, the transcript, which admissions committees always see and weigh heavily, does not lie; if you did poorly in cognate areas like music theory and aural skills, graduate committees are likely to be concerned about it.

The student decided to retake some theory courses and reapply a year later, and this impressed me tremendously. It further supported my opinion that this was someone who deserved to be recommended for graduate studies.

The flaw in this plan was in its execution, however; the student did not do particularly well in the courses taken for the second time. In at least one course they got a lower mark. I mentioned to the student that s/he might not have improved their theory marks sufficiently to impress graduate committees favourably, which, from my point of view was just a reality check – if you take a course and get 68% the first time, and then retake it and get 72%, it seems likely that an admissions committee will be convinced that you have made significant improvements in that area.

It was not intended as a signal that I would now be writing a lukewarm letter on their behalf, but I gather that is how it was interpreted, and I received a formal note from the student that evening informing me that I had been removed from the student's reference list.

Ouch!

The most unfortunate part of all of this is that the student then asked a colleague of mine to write a letter for them, and the colleague (a) had not taught the student in many courses and thus did not know them very well, and (b) taught a course that the student re-took but did not do particularly well in the second time, and so there was no way that this other professor was able to write a strong letter. for the student In fact, I am pretty sure that the letters I had written on the student's behalf were the most supportive and positive of any of the letters written by other professors, simply because (a) I knew the student very well, (b) I strongly supported their candidacy for graduate studies, and (c) I knew that the student was not held in high regard by some of my colleagues.

Unfortunately, the student was not admitted to any graduate programmes after re-taking the theory courses. And, despite what happened, I wish for a bright future for the student, who I continue to believe is a good composer.

So the moral of this excessively-long blog post is: Work hard in every course, even ones you may think are useless or stupid, and demonstrate that you are a good student. Perhaps you will never need reference letters from your professors, but you might; you don't know if your ambitions will change in the future. If you do , pick professors who know you well, and who have been supportive of you, and trust that they will advocate on your behalf.

How can Non-Composers Teach K-12 Composition?

• How do you teach and encourage your students to compose if you have little or no experience composing?

There was a round-table discussion of “creativity in the classroom” at the 2013 Newfound Music Festival, moderated by Professors Andrea Rose and Ki Adams. The audience included music education students and others interested in this topic, and the remaining panel participants were multi-instrumentalist and improviser Paul Bendzsa, ethnomusicologist and "soundsinger" Chris Tonelli, and myself.

This was the ninth consecutive festival with a session on this topic, and the objective every year is to discuss ways in which creativity can be developed and nurtured through teaching music in the public school system, from kindergarten to grade twelve (K-12). As Dr. Rose reminded us, composing is one of the “specific curriculum outcomes” for K-12 in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (if visiting this link, see page 20).

Therein lies the challenge to be explored in today’s blog. Many school music teachers lack a background in composition; how do such teachers cultivate and facilitate composing and, more generally, creativity in their classrooms?

  • Is it possible to be a good teacher of something in which you have little experience? 
  • Is it possible to be a bad teacher of something in which you are highly skilled?

If you're in a hurry, I'll give you a hint: The answer to both questions is yes.

If you wish to continue reading, then consider this:

• Teachers are sometimes not experts in the things they teach. Example: About a week before he started his first teaching job, a friend of mine was asked/told to teach physical education, something for which (a) he had no specific qualifications, and (b) no specific skill set. As a child, gym teachers routinely gave up on my friend because he was considered physically unskilled, and, for the most part, he was okay with that; his attitude was he knew it, and they knew it, so why pretend otherwise? Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I understand he became a very good phys. ed. teacher. He researched the best ways to teach and motivate students in kinesiology (also known as human kinetics, or phys. ed. if you prefer old-school terminology), established fitness goals, and found fun ways for his students to reach them. He found ways to encourage and empower kids who had been written off by previous gym teachers, precisely because he had been one of those people.


• School wind-band teachers are required to have some knowledge of all the instruments of the wind band, but teachers can't necessarily play all (or even any) of the instruments well. They are of course proficient on their main instrument, and they may well be competent in a few others, but for most instruments, they have had very little training or experience. And yet, there they are, teaching our kids how to play these instruments! Is this a problem? Not necessarily. Good teachers find a way to teach basic skills in band instruments, and less-good teachers, for reasons that probably have more to do with pedagogical shortcomings than any lack of proficiency on these instruments, are less successful in this. 


• Many school teachers and professors have found themselves in a position of having to teach something in which they had very little training, and some have gone on to become very good at teaching that subject. This is analogous to parenthood, in that nobody has any experience before embarking on it, but some become very good parents despite this, while others don't. One of the ways many people learn best is by doing. 


• On the other hand, most musicians either know first-hand, or have heard of, cases where a virtuoso performer turned out to be a rather poor teacher of their instrument. Sometimes, the more you struggle in learning something, the better you understand how to teach it, and vice-versa. 


• Experience and proficiency in something do not necessarily make you a great teacher. Overcoming obstacles and struggling to achieve proficiency can make you better equipped to helping students overcome their own struggles.

If you are a school music teacher, and you buy into the argument that you don't need to have achieved mastery in something in order to teach it well, here are some ideas that may help in teaching/encouraging composition and creativity, even if your confidence in this area is not high:

1. Everyone is creative. We too often think of creativity as a "special" thing, a gift, which is bestowed upon some, but not others. This is wrong; we are all creative, but in different ways. In a recent study, 70% of respondents in the United States said they believed the education system stifles creativity. Some people may be more creative than others, but if true, this may be related to the encouragement or discouragement of creative activities experienced while growing up.

“One of the myths of creativity is that very few people are really creative,” said Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. “The truth is that everyone has great capacities but not everyone develops them. One of the problems is that too often our educational systems don’t enable students to develop their natural creative powers. Instead, they promote uniformity and standardization. The result is that we're draining people of their creative possibilities and, as this study reveals, producing a workforce that's conditioned to prioritize conformity over creativity.” ["Study Reveals Global Creativity Gap"]

2. Encourage creativity.  Hypothetical situation: A child makes up a tune and plays it for her teacher; consider two different responses:
   • Teacher 1 response: "Well, I guess it's okay, but I've got to be honest and tell you that it really sounds too much like a Justin Bieber song, which makes it unoriginal, and a pretty poor choice of somebody to copy! I'll give you a C-plus for that, 'cause I'm feeling generous today!" The child is discouraged and embarrassed, and either never tries making up a tune again, or if they do, they know enough to not show it to the teacher.
   • Teacher 2 response: "Wow, that's good! And it kind of sounds like Justin Bieber… but better! You should write more songs!" The child feels encouraged, and keeps at it, keeps improving, and eventually finds their own original voice, which, not surprisingly, turns out to be nothing like The Bieb's.
   
   The act of sharing something you create with someone else makes you vulnerable; you can never be sure how people will react, and for most of us, others' responses matter. Compounding this is the self-doubt that many of us feel when trying something new. Encouraging creative activities for your students is vitally important because it assuages these self-doubts, which in turn makes it more likely that students will want to continue creating things. I think that people who self-identify as "not creative" would not be limiting themselves in this way if they had been encouraged more in their creative activities while growing up.


3. Originality is overrated, at least in the early stages of learning to compose; avoid over-emphasizing its importance to your students. Sounding like someone else when you start composing is a normal part of the process. Indeed, part of the training that many composers received throughout history was to learn to write music "in the style of" some other composer (Palestrina, Bach, Chopin, Schoenberg, Webern, Messiaen, etc.). In doing this, we learn different techniques, and we may choose to recombine aspects of these techniques in any way we wish when writing our own music. Everyone will find their own voice if they keep at it, but they won't keep at it if they are discouraged. If your students like pop music, then you could make a class project where everyone writes a short song (or even just one verse of a song) in the style of an artist they admire. Students can work in teams if they like, and then perform their songs for one another.
   
   
4. The creative process is often messy. Things we make are usually not very good before they become good. Anyone who composes knows this, I suspect. However, there is a myth about the creative process in which genius composers get their ideas in a flash, or at least relatively effortlessly, perhaps as a gift from the Almighty, and all the genius composer has to do is to take dictation feverishly quickly in order to notate the genius composition. Movies such as "Amadeus" reinforce this absurd notion. It is important to make sure your students know that every "genius" composer that ever lived had periods of struggle during the creative process, especially when they were starting out, and often throughout their creative lives as well. "Amadeus" is entertainment with some factual content, not a documentary. .
   
   
5. Self doubt is normal, both for students and teachers, when attempting something new. Self doubt can be an important part of the creative process: A person attempts to create something, but comes to the "realization" that the thing they are creating is not very good. "This sucks!" they might say to themselves, or to you.
   
   This "realization," however, may be (a) flawed; it may not "suck" at all, although it could almost certainly be improved, and (b) is a normal occurrence in the creative process, even for experienced creators; it's an illustration of how our perspective can change from day to day on things we create, and an indicator that we need to keep working on our creation in order to improve it. I have written several posts in which perspective is discussed in relation to the creative process, including this one, should you wish to read further.
   
   As teachers, we can try to ensure that our students know it's okay to doubt ourselves at times, and we can encourage students when this happens. As more experienced musicians than our students (hopefully!), we can suggest some concrete ideas for improvements, such as simplify (texture, harmony, ideas, etc.), repeat, vary earlier ideas, use a simple form like ABA, modulate, try an exotic scale, identify and clarify foreground and background (beginning composers often do not distinguish between the two, making the music sound confused), make it more idiomatic for the performers, and simplify. And simplify. And… Okay, you get it: Simplifying ideas is often a key to improving them!


6. Critique carefully, and sparingly. I think that people who are just getting started in composition or in any endeavour primarily need encouragement, and, while the role of a teacher typically includes critical assessment, often what we as teachers intend as constructive criticism is received by students as discouragement. I would therefore suggest that any critiquing we offer, which ideally can be very helpful to students, be presented in the most encouraging way possible. Students should feel that they are free to take or leave any suggestions offered.


7. Don't be afraid to admit you are not an experienced composer; there is no need to present yourself as an "authority" or "master" of composition, even if you are! Students, even at the university level, often respond well to a comment such as: "I really like your idea there, but I was hoping to hear more of it! Do you think that section could go on a bit longer?" On the other hand, a comment such as, "That section is too short and needs to be extended; what were you thinking?" is likely to alienate people, in part because it sounds like the person saying it is very full of himself. Music is generally written for audiences of non-experts (Milton Babbitt's, "Who Cares if you Listen?" notwithstanding), and non-experts can have very insightful and helpful comments too.


8. Ask the student if there is any part of their composition that they would like to improve. Or you could ask, "on a scale of one to ten, how do you feel about your piece?" Questions such as these can make the student feel empowered, and they contribute to establishing your role as a helper. Ideally, a student would feel comfortable enough to identify at least some aspect of their composition that could be improved, because that builds a bridge between your role as a helper and their desire to improve their piece; you are both on the same side, and the student needs to know this. If the answer is that the student is fully satisfied with their work, this suggests that the work is either really good or the student does not want to hear anything negative or even constructive about it. In this case, it is best not to press the matter; there is little point in attempting to help someone that does not want help. If you continue to build trust with your students, you may find that some students that were initially closed to your suggestions will gradually become more receptive to them.


9. Ask class members for suggestions or reactions to each others' pieces. Do this before you say anything about the students' creations, because once the teacher speaks, some students might not wish to say anything if their opinion differs from the teacher's, while others can be swayed by the teacher's words. If no students wish to offer feedback, you could …


10. Ask specific questions, such as,
    • What do you think of the opening? Does it work for you?
    • Where are some places where the music expresses the meaning of the text really well? 
    • Are there places where the music could better express the meaning of the text? (Possible follow-up: What are some ways of making this happen?)
    • What do you like most about this song/composition?
    • How many different musical ideas are there? Do they all work equally well, or can any be improved? Can any be eliminated?
    If you ask the right questions, many students are happy to give their opinions on things, but they need to know that their opinions are understood, acknowledged, and respected. They also need to know that it is okay for others to disagree with their opinions; different class members might have diametrically opposed opinions on the same question, and that's okay (in fact, it's great!) as long as opinions are expressed as opinions, and diplomatically, e.g., "Maybe I just didn't get it, but I didn't hear a connection between the mood of the poem and the mood of the music," versus "that sucked!", "that was LAME," or "I just didn't like it," etc. Obviously the age and experience of students has a bearing on their ability to articulate specific musical concerns, so if someone says, "I just didn't like it," the teacher could try to follow up with questions to try to narrow this down, such as "what didn't you like?" or "was it too loud?" or "were there some chords that you thought didn't work very well?"


11. GarageBand. This is perhaps the greatest facilitator of composition for untrained music-lovers ever invented, and I say this as the least-hyperbolic person in the history of the universe! ;)  If your school has Macintosh computers, the computers should already have GarageBand installed. If your school has iPads, GarageBand is available as an iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch app (or sometimes it comes bundled with the iPad). I had this program on my computers for years but never used it until a few years ago, and I quickly came to realize that it is easy to use, even for (especially for) non-musicians, fun, and remarkably powerful.
    
    Briefly, GarageBand allows multi-track composition by combining any of thousands of pre-recorded (or pre-created) loops in its library (organized by categories, such as drums, guitars, basses, orchestral, country, jazz, world, cinematic, experimental, etc.), each of which can be edited, abridged, or repeated, as desired by the user. It also allows mutli-track recording and editing of live instruments or voice(s) along with these loops, or on their own, and has guitar-amp modelling that "simulates the sounds of famous guitar amplifiers." It can do a lot more, but the exciting and empowering aspect of it for me is that you don't need any knowledge of musical notation, music theory, or even how to play a musical instrument, in order to produce surprisingly-sophisticated compositions.
    
    My suggestion here is that if your school has access to this app, spend some time fooling around with it, and then get your students working with it. Alternatively, spend no time getting to know it and get your students to figure it out and explain it to you!



12. Do not force the issue.  Some people insist on defining themselves by their limitations, e.g., I'm not creative; I'm lousy at art (or sports, or math, etc.); I could spend 100 years studying music and never write anything that was any good. Like the old adage, you can lead a camel to water, but you can't make it drink, you can offer choices to your students, but it's up to them to select them or not.

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Wow… yet another tome-masquerading-as-blog-post… apologies for the length! :-$

If you would like even more-specific suggestions, consider reading (or referring your students to) a series of posts I wrote on the nuts and bolts of composition from a few years ago called Composition Issues. There is a lot of information available elsewhere on the Internet as well.

And if any of this is helpful, or if you have further suggestions or disagree with any of these suggestions, please leave a comment!