Teaching composition

"Give someone a fish and they will eat for a day; teach them to fish and they will eat for their lifetime." Proverb (attributed to multiple communities on the African continent). 

And, as Trevor Noah points out, “it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” 

So not only the know-how, but market realities: 

They also need to be gifted initial start-up fishing equipment, access to a fairly-priced fishing equipment supply store as well as fair-use of a healthy natural habitat for fishes to actually fish in that won't be overfished by global multinationals, and finally, a way of generating surplus income through equal access to a well-regulated market economy so they can pay for the rest of their lives and maybe have something extra to pass on to the next generation.

What does this mean for composition? 

I want to help you learn ways to help yourself. Realistically.

I'm not a trained pedagogue, I'm a professional artist. I don't have a teaching degree, I have two composition degrees and a doctoral title in artistic research. I was awarded the life-defining privilege of this professorship because I hacked out my existence for over 10 years as a freelance composer, earning every euro for my rent, insurance, food, holidays and even supporting young children through fair-paid composition commissions. A composition degree with me is about providing you some basic generic tools and know-how to do this yourself but ultimately finding your unique and sustainable path forward as a professional artist. 

One could understand both teaching and practicing composition as a process of "standing out while fitting in".

"Standing out" in this context refers to developing the student's unique personal voice, and this is my primary focus in teaching composition. Just like with the anatomical voice, it already exists inside the student and has many personal characteristics. My primary approach is to discover with the student what these strengths and unique characteristics are, and how to use their compositional voice in an expressive, virtuosic and healthy way. 

The word "educate" derives direclty from the Latin "educare" meaning to "bring up" but is also very similar to "educere", meaning to "draw out" - I choose to believe in the similarity of these terms: My goal is to help you lift yourself up (and therefore "stand" out) by drawing out those qualities that you already have inside of you.

In other words: I mostly don't tell my students how they "should" compose, but try and find out how they already do, and what their own vision of doing it "better" could be. I'm not interested primarily in creating clones of myself, even though of course I may have more to discuss with people that share my interests. On the contrary, I am very interested in learning other systems and aesthetics from my students that differ from my own. 

In many ways, I look for students I can learn from myself. So who's who in the picture above?

The secondary focus is fitting this unique voice into the existing musical world, so that it can be used to communicate, and yes, earn a living. I'm not a fan of the idea that compositional voices exist in a vacuum, on an island or come from a far away planet, nor that the university education should be "purely" about the art and not about the business. If you want your voice to be heard, it needs to be at least partially understood by others.

"Fitting in" can be a useful artistic pursuit, since it allows you to connect with others, learn from them and grow together as an artistic community. Also, it can be very useful in building a career and receiving (first) commissions, since artistic directors can much more easily see the "worth" of a piece if uses at least some existing compositional techniques, even if true success and artistic innovation generally come when you "stand out".

In any case, developing technique is a focus of teaching and learning, be it either your own technique (innovation: "standing out") and/or the mastering of existing compositional techniques ("fitting in"). Since I don't believe that I can teach someone their voice, it is perhaps the main focus of my lessons, aside from career advice and help with the psychological side of things. 

So teaching and learning composition may involve asking the same questions a thousand times: "What do you want to compose?" (the voice); "How does it work?" (the technique); "What have you discovered recently?"; "What music has stayed with you for years?"

The synergy of individual personality and networked connectedness is what I aim for in my own music and what I try to foster in my students.

Vienna, 05.10.2026

Bass, Randall V.; Good, J. W. (2004). Educare and Educere: Is a Balance Possible in the Educational System? Educational Forum, The, v68 n2 p161-168 Win 2004: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ724880.pdf (accessed 05.10.2026 at 10:02)

Bellaviti, S. (2015). Standing Out While Fitting In: Genre, Style, and Critical Differentiation among Panamanian Conjunto Musicians. Ethnomusicology, 59(3), 450-474.

"How does it work?" as the primary question of compositional teaching and learning via musical analysis comes from: 

Cook, N. (1994). A Guide To Musical Analysis. Oxford University Press.

Noah, T. (2025). Facebook post: 11 November 2025.

Photograph:

"Die Schneekönigin", Mainz State Opera: 2025. Fotograph*in unbekannt.