Summary
In “Composing Your Own Music in Binary Form,” Joseph Hoffman walks students through how to build and write down a musical idea of their own. A 25-minute lesson from Hoffman Academy's free elementary piano curriculum — drop it into a music center, a keyboard station, or a whole-class music block.
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
Composing is making your own music and saving it so you can play it again.
- What musical idea are you creating in this lesson?
- How can you write your idea down so you don't forget it?
- What would you change to make your piece longer or different?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: compose, idea, pattern.
Try it: Create a four-beat idea, then write or draw it so you can play it again tomorrow.