Composing a Theme and Variations

Karen Marshall describes an effective way of accessing composition, from her distinctive perspective as a teacher, composer and member of the British Dyslexia Association's Music Committee

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It was 25 years ago when I first found myself working as a learning support tutor for GCSE Music composition. I had a profoundly dyslexic student who struggled to write notation even with the stems in the right position, and found writing melodies on a stave near impossible. We did composition solely through him improvising over a given chord structure, recording himself and then finding the notation, on Sibelius, by trial and error.

I have supported students – both neurotypical and neurodiverse learners – in the area of composition for many years. Some would complain about being expected simply to sit at a computer and compose; ‘Blank-piece-of-paper syndrome’ would kick in and they simply didn’t know where to start.