An Undergraduate Music Composition Curriculum with Emphasis on Creative Approaches and Business Initiatives

Elyse Kahler, Texas Tech University

There have been books and articles written about the techniques of composition, but little has been written about how to teach music composition. The few published sources that address composition pedagogy focus on the difficulty in teaching creativity, the techniques students should be taught, or specifically focus on graduate students. There is little said on how to put all of the information into a curriculum that spans across multiple semesters of an undergraduate degree. This paper will provide a six-semester, comprehensive framework for undergraduate music composition students that includes instruction on both creativity and business aspects of music composition. Following the work of John Carbon, the creative aspects of the first four semesters adapt Carl Jung's theory of psychological types (sensation, feeling, thinking, and intuition), each representing a different approach to creativity. This emphasis on the variety of compositional approaches will help students develop their creativity through multiple methods and learn how to integrate them together into a cohesive approach. The other main contribution this paper will provide is an emphasis on the business mechanics of being a composer in the 21st century. This paper provides strategies that help professors guide students to promote their music via maintenance of a website and applying to festivals and competitions. The paper weaves these two main factors (Jungian approach and industry training) together with standard elements of recitals and portfolio creation into one comprehensive plan. Both the Jungian approaches and industry training can be applied to other disciplines as well.