Why teach music composition?
What aspects of composition can be taught?
Can and should composition tuition be used to aid learning
in other disciplines of music, such as performance, sound design etc.?
Can other disciplines in music help learning in composition?
Degree pathways for composers - how joined up is
your curriculum?
How best to organise our teaching and learning?
How to create workable criteria for assessment?
Are such distinctions as 'art music' and 'commercial
music' tenable any longer?
Traditional techniques (harmony,
counterpoint, orchestration etc.) have vanished from many syllabuses and are only required at
a rudimentary level at A level. Does this matter? And do students still need/want them?
How is technology used in composition, both in terms of
teaching and learning; how can it be used better and how do we keep up with
changing technologies?
MIDI: is there an over-reliance on the
computer which is having an adverse effect on the use of the 'inner
ear'?
Music processing: are some necessary
calligraphic skills being lost?
Where are the students coming from? - how do we engage
students from very diverse musical backgrounds?
Why are there so few women studying composition in the
UK? Is this different
elsewhere? Are there insufficient
role models?
Where are the students going? - How do we best prepare
student composers for a career in music?
How best to integrate research in teaching
and learning?
Should we prepare post-graduate composers to consider their
work as practice-based research?
What impact do cultural and institutional structures and
paradigms have on teaching and learning? Are certain values systemically
inherent, for example in the make-up of panels who judge the quality of
research?