Approaches to composition tend to be as varied as the musical materials, concepts and styles available to a given composer. This describes introduction to composition for students of music theory, not an explanation of composition itself.

Philosophies of teaching often include the notion that one can only learn on the basis of what is already known. This can be extended to teaching and learning the material organization of sound to create objects available for human appreciation— composition.

Most composition students have already been trained in tonal harmony and voice leading, and have musical experiences potentially connected with composition—voice or instrument lessons, band pageantry, choral dynamics, lead sheet reading, piano lessons. With the possible exception of the latter, most of these experiences supply little toward comprehending basic musical materials and their potential applications. Popular notions about what it means to compose get in the way, and tonal harmony—while potentially providing invaluable concepts—tends to put students into a procedural straightjacket.

The intentional organization of musical materials requires that those materials first be understood abstractly and conceptually as separate entities from music itself, so they can be consciously applied and integrated—even invented. Helping students understand abstract principles of organization as actual material for composition is sometimes a tall order.

A good way to start is by having them grapple with basic elements of music. The problem is, they will often not do anything that even approaches "grappling" if the elements with which they are provided suggest the all too familiar procedures of tonal harmony and voice leading. They will operate on auto-pilot and never learn to objectify the materials with which they are working.

Students of music theory as it is conventionally known need to be kicked out of the tonal milieu when learning about musical materials and application in their own right. This does not mean tonal elements are less worthy per se; rather, it means students cannot easily learn to objectify musical materials when relying on elements to which they have become habituated, which have already filled their subjective experiences of musical analysis and procedure. Once students grasp materials in an abstract and objective way they can always return to tonal elements, possessed of a conceptual understanding transcending their former experience with them. Either way, they make better composers for having stepped outside the familiar and seen the previously unseen.

Making a procedural departure from tonality while maintaining a connection with the basis for learning—what is already known (tonality in this case)—presents a challenge. There is a particular musical style that makes such a departure while still bridging the gap. That style is Impressionism.

The procedures for composition traceable in the music of Debusy, Ravel, Satie, et al apply elements that are at once familiar and accessible to students—motif, melody, phrase, scale, diatonic set, tertian harmony, etc.—yet separate from the harmonic progression and voice leading specific to the major-minor tonal system. Progression and voice leading in Impressionist music are modal; its elements and procedures provide an introduction to materials in their own right for students of tonal harmony. Impressionist styles incorporate extended tertian and quartal harmony and provide a natural basis for introducing synthetic, secundal, pandiatonic, atonal and dodecaphonic styles and procedures. In all these, application and control of dissonance are separate from the dominant-tonic axis.

Another useful approach in teaching introductory composition is to provide students with specific assignments predefining some elements, while leaving others to students' discretion. This brings the experience of composing down to a level of individual elements, so students can practice conceptualizing and innovating them one at a time. This eventually leads to the development of more complex, integral and intuitive operations within the creative process.

Following is a proposed outline for a course in introduction to composition suitable for either class or individual application.