The Value of Studying Music Composition

The value of studying music composition instead of traditional music lessons:

• learn how music works

• musical understanding not limited to a teacher’s musical preferences

• engage in the creative process, not just the playing of dots on a page

• explore your unique tastes, without excessive reverence to other artists

• develop a non-competitive practice that is sustainable

• avoid creating a false ideal of what progress means

• develop through creation instead of pure analysis and execution

• learn the feeling of flow, not limited to someone else’s musical ideas.

  In my humble yet seasoned opinion, a musician who doesn’t/can’t write original music, should not be teaching music. This is the only way to relate to how others make music, and have made music in the past.