Building on an apposition of the theories of neurobiologist Antonio Damasio and music theorist Heinrich Schenker, we posit a new model for developing composition instruction based upon the organic connections between humans and music. Parallels are drawn between Damasio's theory of consciousness in which meaning arises from the relationships between body, emotion, and feeling; and Schenker's theory of musical structure in which opportunities for meaning making are revealed between the ursatz (background), mittelgrund (middleground), and vordergrund (foreground) layers of a musical work. The resulting principles-based approach to instruction reprioritizes the roles of elements and compositional techniques to foster greater expressivity in children's compositions.