6 ways to make time for creativity: #2 keep your eyes peeled

Regular short, "unfinished" creative activities are crucial for cultivating student creativity

Part of the reason we don’t include creativity in lessons is that we’re too ambitious. We believe that in order to do creativity “properly”, students must complete a full composition or learn to improvise with both hands and hold a beat.

That attitude really holds us back.

The way to get good at something is to do it frequently: “Little and often” is a useful maxim.

To cultivate their creativity, students need many short creative activities.

Try integrating more short creative activities into your lessons, and resist the urge to try to “finish” them. Not everything has to turn into a sonata!

This requires something of an attitude change, but I can’t recommend it enough: it is liberating!

Integrating miniature creative activities into our teaching whenever suitable gives our students:

• creative practise skills

• a better understanding of whatever technique or theoretical concept they are learning

• and—critically—the lived experience of recognising and reacting to creative potential

Here are four regularly occuring mini opportunities to integrate creativity into lessons.

---

Scales

Instead of just teaching your student how to play the basic scale patterns, train them to play the pattern, then accompany them as they improvise. This takes only a couple of minutes.

If you’ve never done this before, the Piano Adventures Scales and Chords book 1 includes basic accompaniment patterns for all keys.

My most-used elementary improvisation book might surprise you!

When you’re doing this, follow Prof. Karen Schlimp’s advice and don’t use the word “improvise”. Instead, say “play free”.

How to get students to relax while improvising

---

Sight reading

When working on a sight-reading exercise, once a student has mastered the exercise, ask them if they think anything could be improved. This is great fun.

Alison Mathew’s Doodles books are excellent for this, as they provide creative suggestions.

Doodles by Alison Mathews

---

Improvise an etude

When a student is struggling with a particular passage in their repertoire, as well as asking them to play it repeatedly, get them to play it in lots of different ways:

• play it in different positions on the keyboard

• play it with different rhythms

• play it with different articulations

• play it with different fingers

• play it backwards

• play it with different texture, e.g. if it’s broken chords, play it as block chords (and visa versa)

If you’ve not done this before, it probably sounds counter-intuitive, but it is remarkably effective. It deepens their understanding of both the movements required and the way the music works.

---

Create around theory

Whenever you teach a new theory concept, especially at the elementary level, try to always include some sort of creative activity that connects to it.

Here’s a post about how I do it when teaching rhythm:

Composing with Rhythm

Here’s a post about a useful set of composition prompt flashcards for elementary students. When I’m teaching a new elementary theory concept, I will often pick out a few flashcards from this set that include the theoretical concept and ask the student to compose a simple related piece as their homework.

Fresh inspiration for child creativity

---

I could go on…

It would be impossible to write an exhaustive list here, because the opportunities for creativity are as varied as the music we teach. You just have to keep your eyes open.