Our Creator Spotlight this month is on Helen Morris. Helen is an experienced piano teacher,  composer of solo and ensemble music and performer. You can read more about Helen’s life, musical career, the inspiration behind her pieces and tips on how to teach composition below.

Helen, thank you so much for being under the spotlight this month! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your musical career to date?

I have been playing the piano since I was six years old. Following a BMus degree at Bangor University, specializing in performance, I did a postgraduate course at Trinity College, London (now Trinity Laban) where I studied with John Bingham. I started teaching the piano in 1991 after the birth of my first child. At first I thought of it as a convenient job to combine with motherhood but I quickly became gripped! I started lessons again myself and took the LTCL Teacher’s Diploma. Then, in 2003, I completed an MA (Music Teaching in Professional Practice) at Reading University, gaining a Distinction.

Performing remains an important part of my musical life. I give occasional solo recitals and also play concerts regularly with a wonderful duet partner. We love to present varied programmes that include the standard duet repertoire (Schubert, Mozart) as well as exciting orchestral arrangements and music by modern composers. I’m hoping to write a duet for us to play when I have the time!

How would you describe your teaching style?

Hopefully warm and welcoming and fully inclusive for all types of learners. The thing I love about being a piano teacher is being able to build a relationship with an individual, discover their strengths and weaknesses and work to find the best route to musical learning for them (I could never be a class teacher!).

I find it is important to keep music making at the forefront of my mind when teaching, as it is so easy to get bogged down with note-learning and technique. These are – of course – essential skills but mixing it up with rote learning, playing by ear and improvising keeps everything fun, interesting and musical.

Who, or what, inspired you to start composing?

I enjoyed composing at university but my main focus was piano performance. I started composing for my pupils when I got a job in a secondary school in 1995 and needed accessible pieces for teenagers. Quite apart from the issue of finding the right material was the fact that I could rarely get the school kids’ parents to buy books and even if they did the kids often forgot them, so having a stock of my pieces to give out meant I always had copies!

At first I lacked confidence. When I was at university I always felt I was ‘doing it wrong’ because I found it hard to compose away from the piano. Then, about 20 years ago, I heard a radio interview with the author, Philip Pullman, whose books I had enjoyed reading to my children. He was critical of the way creative writing was taught in schools, saying that he never planned his books; rather, he became inspired by a single image, started writing and then just allowed the narrative to unfold. This is exactly the way I write music and his words gave me the confidence to keep going!

More recently, my niece inspired me to write some more advanced pieces. She had loved playing all my easier pieces and begged me to write some more complex music. The four studies I have just published were written for her and there are a number of longer, advanced pieces still to come.

How would you describe your compositional style?

I think my pieces are accessible, atmospheric and fun to play. I use a lot of repetition in my beginners’ pieces as I think it’s important for them to start to spot patterns rather than always read note by note. Many of the easier pieces can be taught by rote. I can’t resist a major seventh chord….

What advice would you give to teachers who wish to encourage their students to compose?

• Include improvisation right from the start. In the first lesson, play chord patterns of F# major
  and Eb minor and ask them to join in by playing ‘any black notes you like’.
• Avoid too much explanation and never criticize – just explore different moods.
• Move on to white notes: C major chord sequences, A minor, Dorian and mixolydian modes.
  Keep it simple by only allowing them 5 notes to start with and encourage them to think in
  phrases (questions and answers).
• Help them to compose and write down simple tunes using the notes they are currently
  learning in their pieces (always with an expressive intent: ask them what the piece is about).
• Introduce chords as early as possible and then start encouraging them to steal chord
  sequences from their favourite pop songs/ theme tunes/exam pieces and use them as a
  springboard.
• Encourage an exploratory approach to their repertoire learning. The nice thing about giving
  my own compositions to my pupils is that I don’t mind if they change them to suit themselves:
  feel free to do the same when you teach my pieces to your pupils!

You can explore Helen Morris’s music on My Music Resource here.