The compositional dimension
your studio has been missing.
You teach students to play. Gradus teaches them to compose.
Together, you give them the complete picture — the technical command of their instrument, and the compositional understanding to do something with it.
Gradus does not teach students
to play an instrument.
That is your work — and it matters. What Gradus gives your students is something instrument lessons almost never do: the ability to compose. To take what they hear, what they play, what they feel — and put it down on paper in a form that can be read, performed, and critiqued.
Knowing how to play and knowing how to write are two different skills. Most students never get the second one. Gradus is how they get it.
The method is built on ten stages of compositional study — starting with a single melodic line and ending with writing for full orchestra. Every stage produces compositions. Every composition gets critique. The student learns by doing, not by watching.
Three tools for the teaching relationship.
Nadia Boulanger used it.
Mozart learned from it. Your students can now too.
The Gradus curriculum is built on Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum — the counterpoint treatise that trained Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and that Boulanger still taught to a generation of the 20th century's greatest composers. The name Gradus is a direct reference to that tradition.
History is the curriculum. Students learn theory the way it was actually discovered — era by era, problem by problem. The rules make sense because students live through the moments when they were established.
For studios and for classrooms.
- ·Assign specific curriculum stages to align with what you are teaching in lessons
- ·Track student composition submissions without managing another inbox
- ·Maestro critique means students get feedback between lessons — not just when they see you
- ·Score study library gives students models from the repertoire you are already teaching
- ·Orchestration assignments from Brahms and Debussy — graded composition challenges
- ·Compositional literacy for band, orchestra, and choir students — not just performance
- ·The curriculum follows music history: students learn theory the way it was actually discovered
- ·Class dashboard lets you track an entire section at once
- ·Assignments integrate with your existing lesson sequence without replacing it
- ·Students write music in every stage — not just in a dedicated "composition unit"
Add the compositional dimension
your students deserve.
The students who compose understand music differently than the students who only play. Gradus is how you give them both.