Creativity Development Through Composing Music
Research findings validate that composing music helps foster creativity and cognitive development in children.
Most children these days know their music choices and have solid ideas about the type of music they like and don’t like. Music is a type of creative art that is universal and prevalent in all cultures across the world. Many people wonder whether learning music, or composing music, can make children more creative and help them academically.
Scientists have long been investigating the effects of composing music on brain cells and creativity. Many studies have already endorsed the positive impacts of composing on creativity, mental ability, and memory in children.
Composing Music and Creativity Development
Creativity is an element that is rooted in many facets of our lives. Besides science and math, creativity is a cornerstone of comprehending abstract ideas and finding out of the box solutions to problems. Composing can help achieve that.
To develop creative minds, children must learn composing.
Music instructors who teach music to children have more evidence as to how composing spurs creativity and innovation in those young minds. Scientific studies have also found that to develop creative minds, learning to compose music is key, and they must be done at an early age. Furthermore, an investigation of the history of music provides evidence that many children who got training in composing music grew up to hold patents to many inventions.
An investigative study at MSU found that 93 percent of the study participants who successfully completed their honors program had got music training and remained involved with music for protracted periods. Composition is the act of creating original music, using your mind and hands. It trains the mind and hands to become inventive in different aspects of life and academics. However, the key to developing creative minds is to start music education earlier.
Starting composition lessons at an early age provide a window of opportunity to spur creativity, which can change the life of the person. Music leaves powerful effects on the brain of young children. It would be correct to say that people who compose music during their childhood get a creative advantage during adulthood over those who never compose.
Encouraging Creative Thinking Through Music Composition
The kind of music education that combines abstract and technical knowledge with the opportunity to experiment with one’s own composing abilities can do wonders in encouraging creative thinking in children.
It is time to look at music as a way to spur and develop creativity.
Think about how art teachers work with their students when it comes to painting. At the very outset, the students learn art techniques by painting and drawing. Drama and poetry teachers also work in the same manner, encouraging their students to create their own drams and poetry. Learning music can also involve the same idea, inspiring the students to experiment with their own compositions.
However, unlike other fields of art, it can take music students many months and even years before they are prepared to create their own compositions. To expedite the process, teachers at Stage Music Center provide solid technical and conceptual guidance about composing to the students early on. For instance, when a young student starts the piano lesson, the teacher encourages creativity through composition prototypes. From the onset, inventive exploration of music needs to be a part of the students’ music education.
Encouraging the initiation to compose music also results in higher motivation. When a student gets the opportunity to make his or her own music, it spurs a natural desire to explore and experiment with the different composition techniques. While practice time and teacher concentration are vital to learning composition, personal motivation, and passion play pivotal roles in developing creativity through composing.
Children learn faster when they create their own composition and record the performance. When they listen to their own performance, they are in a better position to assess and improve their creations. Just think about how this approach might transform music education. Parents would feel proud to see their children perform their own composition. Students would be able to come up with their own, original music early on. Chamber ensembles of different kinds would supplement bands, orchestras, and choirs. These can lead to overall promotion of progressive music education.
Music Composition, Improvisation, and Creative Listening
While orchestras and bands that perform contemporary Western music are significant, music education needs to be a mix of more formal music types like classic and folk and modern music like popular. Also, classroom education for younger children must involve composition, improvisation, and creative listening, in addition to the more common elements like singing, playing instruments and moving.
Stage Music Center uses entirely rethought music education techniques. Our lessons involve composition and improvisation. We are changing the music learning culture, encouraging students and teachers to share music with people outside the school halls. It is time not only to celebrate the beautiful music performances in schools but also to take the lead in blending music with creativity and music composition.
It is time to look at music as a way to spur and develop creativity, instead of just thinking of it as vocational training or form of entertainment. Music must give a student the opportunity of personal exploration and expression, in addition to being creative and having aesthetic experiences. Doing so will go a long way toward raising adults who can change the world through innovations, inventions, and creativity.
Takeaway
Children are naturally more interested in singing and dancing. While entertainment, fun, and laughter are crucial for the wellbeing of young children, introducing them to music education helps them develop many positive physical, emotional, and cognitive abilities. Music lessons must not be limited to playing instruments and singing. Music education must also include helping the students to experiment with composing their own music. Doing so develops and promotes creativity in the students, as explained above, and endorsed by scientific studies.
Making your own composition itself is a creative process. It trains the minds to find creative solutions to complex problems. Children who are exposed to composing music at an early age grow up to be more creative and innovative.
Do you want your children to be more creative by learning music? Contact us now for more details or register your children for our next music class.
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