Week 3 - Improvisation and Composing

I spent a lot of time contemplating improvising and composing this week, from why to teach composing, how to guide improvisation, what software or apps to use, and much more. This is not the first course at Kent that has challenged me to include improvisation and composition in my classes. Technology has given my some of the tools I can use with my students. Two tools I discovered this week will be evident in my middle school orchestra rehearsals. The first is the SCAMPER technique (Bauer, p. 71). I have many students who want step-by-step directions. Asking them to improvise a variation of a melody is a daunting task to them. The SCAMPER technique is just what I need to guide my students. The SCAMPER technique is really just a way to organize thinking techniques. I will be using a different technique each week to guide my students in improvisation.  

• S Substitute  - Remove some part of the accepted situation, thing, or concept and replace it with something else. 
• C Combine  - Join, affiliate, or force together two or more elements of your subject matter and consider ways that such a combination might move you toward a solution.  
• A Adapt  - Change some part of your problem so that it works where it did not before.  
• M Modify -  Consider many of the attributes of the thing you're working on and change them, arbitrarily, if necessary. Attributes include: size, shape, other dimensions, texture, color, attitude, position, history, and so on.  
• P Purpose  - (Put to other use) Modify the intention of the subject. Think about why it exists, what it is used for, what it's supposed to do. Challenge all of these assumptions and suggest new and unusual purposes. 
• E Eliminate  - Arbitrarily remove any or all elements of your subject, simplify, reduce to core functionality  
• R Reverse  - Change the direction or orientation. Turn it upside-down, inside out, or make it go backwards, against the direction it was intended to go or be used. 
• R Rearrange  - Similar to Reverse, modify the order of operations or any other hierarchy involved.  

(http://www.ideaconnection.com/thinking-methods/scamper-00022.html)
The second tool is graphically oriented software such as Soundation or Garage band as a good first step to composing. Students need to have opportunities to create, with and without traditional notation. Soundation or Garage band allows a student to create without being limited by their notation literacy. They may not know how to notate a syncopated passage with hemiolas, but they know what they like! I left sub plans for my middle school orchestra students this week to create a sound track within Soundation or Garage band that will be used to practice scales and rhythm exercises at home. I am excited to see and hear what they created!