By Raphael Egídio and Rosana Garbin
Creativity should be encouraged in the development of our students. From the technical, musical, and expressive elements already known and experienced by young musicians in their studies, they can also be motivated to combine these elements and create their own music. A deeper look will show that fostering creation and composition should be an integral part of our work with students. But how can we incorporate and balance this work into the routine of our studios?
Teachers and parents have likely all had a student or child eager to share a piece of music they have created. It is not uncommon in these moments to show some interest in listening, only to move on to the usual lesson or other tasks, leaving that new melody forgotten. At these moments, we fail to stimulate the development of the young person’s creativity, limiting the expression of what has emerged most genuinely from within them. This happens due to commitments with the subjects we must cover, such as lessons or practice at home, simple insensitivity, or lack of interest.
Around 2012, we began reflecting on how we could not only value these creative impulses but also foster and stimulate those who had not yet ventured into the realm of composition. In this article, we will detail our own pathway in this project, including our inspiration, practical suggestions, and future goals.
Beginning Notes
After recognizing the compositional impulses of several of our students, the first step was to gather compositions already created by some students. At this point, they only existed as melodies without written notation, recorded on cell phones. We realized that these compositions should be transcribed into sheet music and receive harmony for accompanying instruments. This was the beginning of creating a more concrete structure that valued the creativity that had already taken place while forecasting what would soon come. This brought immense pride to the young composers.
At that time, we transcribed the melodies and wrote them in formal musical notation. The student/composer would receive their edited printed score on the day they performed their music—the premiere! It was always a moment of great excitement, often leading the parents and students to express a desire to frame the sheet music and hang it on the wall at home.
Approximately two years after starting this work, we attended the Sixteenth Biennial Conference of the SAA in Minneapolis in 2014, where we attended a session presented by Nancy Modell that was specifically about a project involving student compositions. The presentation was simply enchanting and inspired us to continue with this project, now with more ideas on how to move forward, especially knowing that another teacher was also carrying out a similar initiative.
Around this time, the project was expanded to the whole school, and immediately compositions began to emerge in the recorder course.
Project Structure
From the compositional approach presented in Minneapolis, we learned how to suggest themes to guide the work of young composers. Once a year, a specific theme would be proposed (animals, Halloween, movies, etc.). Inspired by this idea, we began proposing that our students themselves choose a guiding theme for their compositions: a book they had read, a known story, a poem, a painting, a sport, a scene from nature, a trip, people, etc. As a result, pieces were composed based on everything from paintings (Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt) to vacation trips (Clouds – A Trip to Peru).
From this thematic starting point, at home, the student develops melodies that represent or illustrate those ideas. Parents make audio or video recordings to preserve the developed ideas. The student then performs what they have created in class, and the teacher may suggest some rhythmic or structural adjustments, but without major interference.
Teachers and parents can encourage the student in this process, prompting reflection with questions such as:

What sound would describe the kitten waking up or a swimming competition?
What tempo represents this feeling? (Melancholy, euphoria, etc.)
What rhythms identify this character? (Heroism, battle, adventure, etc.)
What dynamic describes this atmosphere?

Having a guiding theme is not required for the process, but merely a suggestion. Many compositions have been and continue to be created by students based on free experimentation and the search for melodies. Typically, the rest of the composition emerges only after the melody has been completed.
Once this material is finished, a recording is produced of the student performing their piece and sent to an arranger. To ensure that the arranger understands the young composer’s musical intent and stays true to their idea, the student also sends a second audio or video recording describing the context of the creation, the emotions involved, the scenario, how the story ends, what each part of the melody represents, who the characters are, and any other details. The arranger transcribes it and creates the arrangement for the accompanying instrument.
To strengthen the compositional process and make it solid and continuous, we designated a specific period for this work: the Pre-Graduation period. This way, it was established that at graduation recitals, students are invited to include their compositions on the “big day.” This procedure has cultivated a culture within the school community where the audience attending the recitals now anticipates hearing a new piece, a debut on that date.
A minimal proportion of students, perhaps less than 5% of those who received the composition proposal over the years, resisted the idea. Some of them, with encouragement and persistence from teachers and parents, overcame this resistance and completed the process. In the end, the pride in their creation was always evident. Generally, resistance arises as a defense against facing the unknown, the fear of exposing themselves by creating something they perceive as too simple or lacking beauty.
Observable Results
Many artistic interpretations can be drawn from this material. Sometimes, elements in the title, chosen theme, and the melody itself reflect the student’s emotional state or thoughts, which, without this work, would likely never have emerged.
From a student’s first composition to their next, it is evident how they add new technical elements, mastering the tools that emerge from their technical and musical development (new keys, bow strokes, ranges, expressive elements, etc.). This indicates that, as a rule, these compositions can be performed by any other student at the same Suzuki Method level.
Among the medium- and long-term skills that students develop, we prepare students to:
Be able to encode feelings and ideas into sounds/art
Equip them to create more elaborate future compositions
Compose their cadenzas for concertos
Be a versatile musician, develop arranger skills

Our future plans for this project include compiling the sheet music and publishing it in a book. We also plan to organize a musical project that encompasses the entire school, where student compositions are learned, rehearsed, and performed in group lessons and collective performances. In addition to exploring the compositional element, we will also conduct technical/musical and pedagogical analyses of the compositions.
Conclusion
Performing their compositions elevates the student to a very special level of connection with their instrument, the sounds, and themselves. Their music is imbued with and carries the deepest meanings, extracted through the meticulous and delicate process of stitching the notes into a coherent musical fabric.
This work developed at the Suzuki Center of Brasília has already served as the foundation for scientific research at the University of Brasília and has inspired and motivated other teachers to also encourage their students to compose, following the ideas presented in this approach. Over the span of thirteen years of work, more than 350 new pieces, edited and recorded, have been “gifted” to the world.
Many thanks to Professor Nancy Modell, who was the speaker in 2014 who inspired us at the Minneapolis Conference. Your work inspired teachers who live far away, but who, driven by your ideas, were able to continue developing our structure and inspire other teachers and new students to carry out this important work in a distant country.