Interview, Kit Massey: Music Theory for Kids

Music Theory for Kids is a bumper collection of creative activities for bright young musicians. Fully illustrated and story-based, the book makes children's first encounter with music theory accessible and relevant. Perfect for both individual theory tuition and use in the primary school classroom, the book features over 100 pages of creative music theory, with extra online worksheets for consolidation.

We recently got together with Kit Massey who talks about Music Theory for Kids and the importance of holistic learning for young musicians. Read the full interview below.

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What is it that makes Music Theory for Kids so great for kids?

I found when researching for this book that although there were some amazing resources for music theory, they tended to be very rote, and almost exclusively book-based, which took away from the process of actually playing an instrument. Therefore, something that is missing from a lot of music theory teaching is creativity. I was very lucky in the way that I was taught music theory, which was extremely creative. The idea of music notation was gradually introduced, mainly through composition and improvisation. I didn't know the words for these things yet, but it was all part of this fun and creative process. That is what I am trying to reintroduce in this book - putting creativity, fun, and ownership at the centre of learning.

How did your own experiences influence you in the writing of this book?

I studied at both junior and senior Trinity [College of Music] and went on to teach at both colleges. I remember going to junior Trinity on a Saturday morning and taking musicianship classes. We'd all compose, and it wouldn't be 'music theory' as such in the beginning: it was taught by stealth. They'd give us a piece of classical music, and they would say, for example: "This is a piece of music about an evil goblin, here's the beginning, now go and write the rest of it". Then you'd go off with a friend and play the piece together. After that there would be the process of refining it, but the music theory was always at the service of creativity. Not only does that make it fun, but it also makes it relevant. These musicianship classes are great and really fundamental. I wanted the philosophy of that to permeate through the book. A new technical concept to achieve a creative task is how the book is structured.

Can you tell me more about the structure of the book?

The beginning of each chapter starts with a creative brief. One example is 'Music for Spies'; the brief is to compose some music for a new spy film. In this exercise we explore themes which allow us to write the piece, by asking questions like "How can we make music that sounds like someone sneaking about?". To do that we need to learn about steps and jumping between notes, and so on.

I think there are reasons why that kind of learning is generally avoided in resources, because with music theory there are aspects that are right or wrong, and it is very easy for tutors to mark it if it is rote learning or exercise-based. There are some exercises like that in this book of course, but there is still space for creativity. There is an element of subjectivity in the end piece, but I don't think we should shy away from that - I think we should celebrate it.

Does the book prepare you for music and music theory exams?

This book is for grade one music theory, mapping onto the ABRSM grade one music theory syllabus. When I was writing this, I realised quite how much that is. It's a lot, which is why this is quite a bumper book! It's over one hundred pages long and goes through all the building blocks with topics like pulse, rhythm, and pitch, right through to Italian music expressions, articulation, intervals, scale degrees, and even things like tonic triads - which is quite a lot of ground to cover. There are a lot of online resources that support this book too. I have tried to cover everything as effectively as I can whilst being mindful of balancing explanations and exercises. The book approaches similar topics from different directions, structuring it in a way that there are a variety of exercises. When you get to grades two and three a lot of the groundwork and fundamentals have already been covered, so there is a lot to cover at this initial stage!

I really like the superhero, comic book style of adventure the book takes you on. How did you come up with the idea?

The overall style came from the illustrator, who has done a fantastic job. I gave them little bits of my rubbish drawings and they came out with this comic book theme and an amazing layout. The superhero idea itself came from a character that pops up throughout the book to give you helpful tips: the masked composer. The illustrator came up with the idea to unmask them at the end, so you get to guess who the masked composer is, which adds to the journey of the book.

Some of the books I learnt from myself had a cast of characters who would reappear throughout and I quite enjoyed that style of learning; I liked the idea of people learning along with you. For example, one of the characters, Cecil, is a bit hapless. He gets everything wrong, loses his homework, and is always writing compositions with mistakes. As you work through the book you get to correct those mistakes and feel this sense of helping him. One thing from teaching I have learned is that kids love to spot mistakes in other people's work!

Did you come up with all of the characters yourself?

Yes, I did. I wrote this book in lockdown, so a while ago now. I also had the idea for the dad joke corner, and some of those jokes are mine, but the editors took the idea and ran with it. Students love to tell you how awful your joke is, so I put some groan-worthy dad jokes in there: I thought that would be quite fun.

How did the book come about?

It was a brief from Hal Leonard. Trinity has a reputation as being 'the creative conservatory', and there was a real want from Hal Leonard to integrate more creative activities into their resources. This also comes from the national curriculum, where the idea of creativity is a focus of the syllabus. As part of their research, they came to Trinity and spoke to me and several of my colleagues about producing resources. I realised from this, I had already been making worksheets for weekly lessons, so it was just a case of corralling them and thinking about how best to put them together. Once the opportunity came, I realised it was very timely in that not only did I suddenly have lots of time, but I also had lots of ideas that were tried and tested.

In what ways did your teaching career help inform decision-making when writing the book?

I suppose the idea of a holistic music education, driven by the model of musicianship classes at Trinity. That has definitely informed the book. I've written cues in the book such as "play your piece to your postman" or "play it to your auntie". I think it is important that students can go and play their pieces because it's their composition, and that's something that they should celebrate and be proud of.

From my experience in teaching children, they love creating stuff. We don't learn to draw by talking about colour theory, we learn by drawing. Then we refine it and then perhaps start to talk about perspective after that. That idea is very difficult to structure in a book, but I've done my best to add elements of creativity to encourage children. By the end of the book they will have composed five or six songs that they can play on their instrument, and that they can share with their friends.

Lastly, can you tell us why music theory is so important for musicians to learn?

Music theory gives you a set of tools; with a set of tools, you can take stuff apart and see how it works. Music theory is like that, letting you look at the pieces that you're playing and notice the patterns. But with tools you can also build things; you can make stuff. I think that every musician should have access to that and they don't have to identify as a composer to do so.

Music is often taught and enjoyed in the Western world in a very strange way; there is an artificial and slightly limiting way of identifying with music, and it's not a way that people in the past would have thought about it. It's very often not a way that people in other musical traditions think about it either. While the classical world has some huge benefits, like amazing technical efficiency, this more holistic way of thinking about music is something that needs to be encouraged, supported and explored. That's hopefully what this book is doing in its own way.