Creation or Re-creation?
Parents of musical children often ask: “when will my child be able to create their own music?” This is a natural question, we all associate music with creativity. However, while children go to art class and produce their own paintings, take writing lessons and author their own stories, they seldom create original pieces at the piano. In most piano methods, re-creation, or interpreting another person’s music, is the goal.
Music theory, or musical grammar, is often taught as an analytic, not a creative tool. We memorize rules for identifying key signatures, practice correct scale fingerings, or analyze chords on worksheets. These activities are far removed from anything resembling actual music.
Students in this framework may develop musical literacy – the ability to read music, but will not develop musical competence – the ability to produce their own music. Music is a language. If we could read or memorize English poetry, but are unable to compose our own sentences, could we really call ourselves fluent?
For parents who wonder how we approach creativity at Oclef, here are some ideas our faculty use to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Through these activities, students can play with music as a creative medium, not just reproduce music by historical composers.
Musical Recipes: Using Repertoire as Templates
A practical and inspiring way to teach music theory is by guiding students to compose and improvise using the very concepts they are learning. Instead of memorizing scales, students can use them as palettes for melody. Rather than drilling chord identification in isolation, we can invite students to do a musical analysis of their pieces and listen to how different chord progressions sound and feel by playing them in context—over a loop, under a melody, or within a simple song structure.
For example, if a student is learning a simple piece, we can invite them to create their own version: same meter, similar form, but with their own melody or rhythm, or chord voicing. Or, they can keep the chord progression and try multiple new melodies over it—exploring how rhythm, chords and intervals shape expression. How about changing the mode? Going from major to Minor, or from fast to slow.
The musical ingredients to this piece are:
- Mood: Happy
- Key: F major
- Meter: ¾
- Ostinato pattern on harmonic 5ths in the left hand
- Melodic right hand
With these ingredients, a student can improvise freely in F major with the right hand while playing the left hand ostinato. To change the mood, they could add an E flat to the right hand, making the piece F mixolydian. Add an A, G, and D flat, and they get F phrygian. In this way, students can explore advanced concepts like modes experientially. Instead of seeing modes as an abstract concept, students can see them as colors, moods, building blocks with which to experiment. Your imagination, and your student's curiosity, are the only limits to which musical ideas you can explore. Creating a space for the student to lead while facilitating their creative impulses makes lessons fun, unpredictable, and more engaging.
After experimenting for a while, we can suggest a student start writing their ideas down. In the example below, we used the piece to talk about the mixolydian mode, and question and answer phrase structures:
This isn’t about pushing students to be “composers” in the formal sense, but about demonstrating the creative process. When we reverse-engineer pieces into their basic components—motifs, structures, textures—we show students that music isn’t a magic trick created by geniuses, but a craft they too can engage with.
Integrating Aural Skills Through Improvisation
Many students (and parents) associate ear training with mysterious talent or rote interval recognition. But playing by ear is deeply connected to improvisation and pattern recognition. When students regularly improvise with chord progressions and melodic fragments, they start to hear how music works. They develop a natural sense of tonal center, harmonic rhythm, and voice leading—skills that are foundational for playing by ear and writing original music.
Students begin to internalize harmonic function not just as a labeling system, but as an expressive tool: “What does this chord do? How does it want to move? What feeling does it evoke?”
Students begin to internalize harmonic function not just as a labeling system, but as an expressive tool: “What does this chord do? How does it want to move? What feeling does it evoke?”
Conclusion
When theory is taught as a living, breathing language of music—not just abstract rules on paper or theory—it becomes relevant and empowering. We enjoy music when it is something we actively shape, not something to which we passively conform. By exploring our own musical creativity, we stop merely repeating the patterns dictated to us and play with freedom. Music is no longer something we just play, but something we play with.