Kids in Maggie Olivo's music class work to compose their own melodies on the xylophone. (Devan Ridgway)
A program that links Indiana University and Monroe County students gives young composers an opportunity to create their own music.
Debbi Ponella and Ruth Boshkoff created the program 20 years ago. Hundreds of kids in second through sixth grades from the Monroe County Community School Corp. enter every year. Eight winners are selected in the fall to work with students at the IU Jacobs School of Music to develop their melodies into a bigger orchestral or band piece in the spring.
“The idea was to give the music teachers in the area a reason to focus on music composition just at least one point in the year,” Ponella said, “and to support them and to highlight that and what they were doing with their kids, and then give way for the students to shine."
Maggie Olivo, a music teacher at Fairview Elementary, has been composing music since she was 9 years old. She’s been teaching kids how to compose their own music for 20 years. She works with her students for up to five weeks in the fall to compose and write their own melodies. Experience playing an instrument is not required to participate.
“We started with a really simple musical idea, and then we talked about all these different ways that you could play with it,” she said. “And so much of composition is that reflective component where you hear an idea and then you think, ‘OK, do I like that? Can I change it a little bit? What happens if I repeat this but maybe I change it this way instead?’”
One boy created a slow, spacey melody on the xylophone that he said gave off a “Minecraft vibe.” A girl created a minute-long piece on the xylophone based off where the characters from the “Warriors” book series live.
“I want it to be a hands-on experience, first and foremost,” Olivo said. “So I know that a lot of composition assignments might start with like the pencil and paper, and I do the opposite. I want them to have the music come from them, and I want it to be a musical idea that they love, and that's something they created, and then we get it onto paper.”
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Theresa Baird, a fifth grader at Binford Elementary School and one of the winners of this year’s competition, said she worked on building her composition for a few weeks in class. She named the melody “Untitled.”
“When I think of music, I like to think about, kind of like happy tunes,” she said. “So I kind of thought about that. And I thought of a rhythm, and then I kind of went over to a xylophone and started, like, tapping notes, and kind of just figured out what sounded good.”
This is Theresa’s first time in the competition and she was happy with how her composition turned out.
“It started out with something small that, like, sounded good, but…of course, it wasn't…amazing,” she said. “When I heard this, it's just like, I feel like it should be in a musical or something.”
Theresa didn’t think her piece would be chosen as one of the eight winners. She’s learning piano, and played the recorder last year in class. She said she was in her room reading when her dad came in and said: “’Hey Theresa, I got an email that was to you’ and he read it to me and I was like, wow. I didn’t expect that.”
Esme Cooper, a fifth grader at University Elementary and another winner, said her composition is also named “Untitled.” She created her melody on a xylophone.
“I basically just put on random things and found out what sounded good,” Esme said.
This was Esme’s first time composing her own music. Her grandma and music teacher encouraged her to enter the competition.
“It was crazy. I was like, I did not expect to win this thing. I know, like, nothing about music, so when I see it played like that, I'm like, wow, I'm just mind blown.”
Both Theresa’s and Esme’s melodies were given to Euna Joh, a first-year doctor of music student at the IU Jacobs School of Music, to develop into a single, bigger composition that an orchestra performed. The name of the full composition is “Little Minds, Big Sounds.”
“The instrumentation, I would say, is pretty unconventional,” Joh said. “The brass was playing the first melody and then the string was exchanging later. So I had to decide that, and then in the last section, I wanted to mix two melodies together so we can end it nicely.”
Even though only eight winners are selected every year from hundreds of entries, Olivo said she still encourages her students to enter. Even though submitting an entry isn’t required, all students must produce a melody up to one minute long.
“I do a whole lesson on just risk taking, just because I think for so many students, it's really scary to enter a contest because of the fear of rejection,” she said. “If their melody isn't selected, we talk about that that doesn't devalue the power of what they've created, like they've still created their own composition.”
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Ponella said she is expanding the program and has created a runners-up workshop. Kids who have been finalists multiple times are given the opportunity to work with local musicians to work on new melodies together and get one-on-one feedback. She is also working to extend the program to rural areas.
“I'd love to expand it that way so that we can reach more students, music teachers, musicians, composers, just everybody who can benefit from interacting in this really unique way to create something beautiful,” she said.
The second set of winners will have their compositions performed at the next concert in April.
“I always watch the children who are up there, hearing their melody and then hearing their melody be expanded on and become something bigger,” Ponella said. “And to be a part of that and the smiles…It gives me chills to think about it, because it's incredible to see them realize what their voice, what their ideas, can grow into.”
