Creating Student Rehearsal Guides for String Orchestra

Abstract

Great orchestra teachers are constantly seeking ways to differentiate learning to challenge all student members. This can include different learning styles, different backgrounds, different technical levels, and even different instruments. Although differentiation may have several definitions, Tomlinson et al. (2003) defined it

as an approach to teaching in which teachers proactively modify curricula, teaching methods, resources, learning activities, and student products to address the diverse needs of individual students and small groups of students to maximize the learning opportunity for each student in a classroom.

In a rehearsal setting, orchestra teachers often focus their time working with one group of instrumentalists and may inadvertently neglect other groups. For example, a teacher may focus on the violinists who struggle with a particular section while the violists, cellists, and double bassists patiently wait their turn. Although there are a variety of important and necessary strategies teachers can use to keep the entire class engaged—instructing them to clap the tempo, perform a drone, perform a rhythm on an open string, place students into sectionals—the focus of instruction may change due to the inherent needs of a piece rather than the needs of the students, which may cause some students to feel left unchallenged while others feel overly challenged.

The construction of programmed repertoire is also an important factor for differentiating student learning. Due to the nature of how composers historically wrote string orchestra music, viola, cello, and double bass parts may not be as challenging as the violin parts. Although recent compositions may provide an equal challenge for all parts, teachers must carefully select repertoire so that all students are learning new techniques or improving old ones (Gillespie 2001; Hamann and Gillespie 2018; Rotjan 2018). Selecting music where half the class is performing a challenging part is akin to teaching a math class where half the class learning from an algebra textbook and the other half is learning from a calculus textbook. Selected repertoire should equally and appropriately challenge each student, regardless of their instrument.

One way to provide similar instruction with a varied group of music students is to have them perform the same material—rhythmically and melodically—in a sequential manner. Method books for beginning students are generally effective at providing material for unison instruction. Students perform exercises that are written in either unison or octaves and have similar rhythms. They also learn how to perform the same musical content even though they are performing on different instruments. Method books use fewer musical variables, such as different harmonic and rhythmic components, in each exercise that allow the teacher and the students to primarily focus on performance and technique. If a unified approach to skill acquisition as found in some method books could be applied to learning repertoire, especially challenging pieces, it may provide more efficient rehearsals and equally engage all students regardless of instrument.

Robert Gillespie (2003) suggested that teachers incorporate repertoire-based warm-ups in their lessons by following three basic steps: analyze the performing skill required to perform the piece, determine teaching and rehearsal strategies for the warm-up, and create a repertoire-based lesson plan. If a piece contains a difficult rhythm, a teacher may perform that rhythm in a series of echo sequences, and then have the students perform the rhythm on a scale. If a piece contains spiccato, the teacher can review that technique as a warm-up before applying it to the piece. Although repertoire-based warm-ups may address several musical concepts and techniques, it might not address note-reading, phrasing, teaching ensemble to younger musicians, and it may not provide an opportunity for all musicians to learn the challenging parts of the piece.

I have used Gillespie’s (2003) concept of repertoire-based warm-ups regularly while teaching beginning middle school through advanced high school orchestra students, but I found I needed a resource that could reduce the number of musical variables in a rehearsal. I needed a resource that would focus on selected repertoire, help students improve note-reading, and expose them to the challenging excerpts throughout the piece. Therefore, I created student rehearsal guides (SRGs) that allowed me to teach my students musical concepts in unison, which ultimately made rehearsals more efficient. The following describes my process for creating an SRG along with examples used for beginning, intermediate, and advanced string students.

Creating an SRG

An SRG is a series of exercises and excerpts used to teach repertoire-based concepts and techniques across all ensemble instruments. SRGs are highly personalized and should be designed to target the learning needs of students in a particular school year. Orchestra teachers must know the strengths and weaknesses of their students to create an effective SRG. Although it takes additional time to plan and create an SRG, I found that class instruction was more efficient and students learned the repertoire at a faster pace when an SRG was used.

“Although it takes additional time to plan and create an SRG, I found that class instruction was more efficient and students learned the repertoire at a faster pace when an SRG was used.”

There are three basic steps needed to create an effective SRG. The first step is gaining an understanding of technical and musical difficulties through score study. Specific technical and musical challenges may include right hand skills, left hand skills, rhythmic challenges, musical or expressive phrasing, or advanced techniques. The second step is creating an SRG that facilitates the teaching challenges determined in Step 1. SRGs may include new musical concepts, vocabulary, notated exercises, and short excerpts directly from the repertoire. While writing exercises that build on a particular concept or rhythm, it is important to scaffold each exercise so students can build upon previous knowledge. The third and final step involves creating a lesson plan that will teach difficult concepts to all members of the ensemble. For example, if a violin part contains a challenging chromatic passage, the SRG should include the chromatic passage so all instrumentalists have an equitable opportunity to learn or review chromaticism. The following are examples of SRGs that I designed and implemented for my middle and high school orchestra students.

Beginning Level: The Russian Music Box

My first SRG example is based on The Russian Music Box composed by Soon Hee Newbold (2004), a piece I programmed for my beginning students. Although it has a wide range of notes—it uses all four strings for violins and the upper three strings for viola, cello, and double bass—it is rhythmically simplistic and contains several attainable challenges for students. In the SRG I created for my students (see Figure 1), I provided definitions of musical terms found in the parts (e.g., moderato, pizzicato, and arco). I also added a description of divisi, explained the difference between inside and outside players, and shared what notes they are supposed to perform. Guidelines for the few students who did not have a stand partner were also included. While the SRG in Figure 1 is a violin part, the viola, cello, and double bass parts all have the same notes and rhythms, just in different octaves in accordance with the instrument range.

Figure 1.

Rehearsal guide for The Russian Music Box by Soon Hee Newbold.

For beginning ensemble musicians, performing a part different from their peers could be a difficult concept considering they are accustomed to performing unison parts. However, I wanted to teach the music in unison so students could focus on the notes, rhythms, as well as their general technique—right hand skills, left hand skills, maintaining posture—before having them perform different parts together. As such, I included various excerpts from The Russian Music Box in the SRG with the intention of teaching the students different parts in unison and eventually performing them together. Although some method books already introduce students to performing their own part, creating an SRG allows teachers to personalize the learning experience to meet the needs of their class, select a wider range of repertoire, and fully immerse them in the lesson planning process.

During my lesson with the SRG, we first worked on Line A together. Once students mastered Line A, we worked on Line B. At this point, I pointed to the concepts of the bottom of the page and discussed how to divide parts. Once students mastered Line B, I divided the class so half of the students performed Line A, while the other half performed Line B. Although the violins do not have Line A in the actual score—it is in the cello and double bass part—they still learned the part, which reinforced note-reading.

For the next lesson, we worked on Lines C and D in a sequence similar to the first lesson. I also reinforced the concept of dividing parts by asking outside players to perform Line C and inside players to perform Line D. Once students were ready, I assigned each instrumental section a separate line, Lines A through D, to perform. I repeated the order several times assigning different instruments a different line, and I eventually allowed students to choose their own line.

Lines E and F cannot be performed with Lines A through D harmonically, but they can be performed together. Additionally, in the score, the double bass part does not perform either Lines E or F, while the cello line has only Line F. By using the SRG, the entire class learned the cello part indicated in Line F. Additionally, the double bassists would remain engaged and challenged by learning score excerpts not in their part. Eventually, the students performed Lines E and F together.

Once I was satisfied with the progress my students made on the SRG, we began to focus on their individual parts indicated in the piece. After we discussed similarities and differences between the piece and the SRG, we performed the piece one section at a time. I was amazed with how quickly students learned their part and how confident they were with their performance each time we played through the piece.

Intermediate Level: Agincourt

My second SRG example is based on Agincourt by Doug Spata (2007), a piece I used to specifically teach my intermediate students how to read in 7/8 time. After studying the score, I decided I wanted to focus primarily on the different rhythms Spata applied in Agincourt, teach students how to subdivide the rhythms, and show them how to perform the rhythm in context. My final SRG for Agincourt can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Rehearsal guide for Agincourt by Doug Spata.

Line A on Figure 2 focuses on the eighth-note subdivisions used for 7/8. I grouped the stems similarly to the music to show the 2 + 2 + 3 pattern. I instructed students to write the subdivisions underneath each note on their SRG (e.g., 1-2-1-2-1-2-3, 1-&-2-&-3-e-&). Once they completed writing the subdivisions, we clapped Line A while counting out loud, bowed the rhythm on an open string, and performed the rhythm using scales. Once students demonstrated competency performing these tasks, we went through similar steps for Lines B, C, and D. Line E is an excerpt from the cello and double bass part using the rhythm in Line D. Although all parts contain this rhythm (Line D), I included Line E to familiarize violinists and violists with how it sounds. Line F is the main melody which only appears in the violin parts. This gave violists, cellists, and double bassists an opportunity to learn and perform a melody that was not written in their parts. Although I could have included several other excerpts in the SRG, the primary objective of this particular guide was to teach students how to count, subdivide, and ultimately perform in 7/8. By teaching my students these concepts using an SRG, they were able to learn their individual part more independently and efficiently.

Advance Level: Holberg Suite Op. 40 IV. Air

My final SRG example is based on Holberg Suite Op. 40 by Edvard Grieg, a piece I programmed for my advanced students. As I prepared my lesson plans, I located several sections that would be challenging for my students. Although I planned appropriate rehearsal-guided warm-ups and other strategies for most of those sections, I determined that creating an SRG specifically for the fourth movement was most appropriate in targeting the learning needs of my students at the time. For this particular SRG, I developed two components—one focused on rhythms and the other focused on the melody.

In the first component of the SRG, I prioritized teaching students how to subdivide various rhythms presented in Air (e.g., triplet sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, triplet thirty-second notes) (Figure 3). Although my students could have learned this movement without an SRG, I created one so that I could uniformly teach rhythmic and musical concepts to immediately apply in their music. Additionally, not all the parts contained the rhythms presented in the SRG. For example, the second violins and violas do not have triplet rhythms that are in the other parts. Using an SRG ensured that all students were familiarized with all the rhythms presented throughout the movement and can connect musically with voices playing those rhythms.

Figure 3.

Rehearsal guide for the rhythm in Holberg Suite IV.

Although my students understood basic subdivisions, I structured the SRG sequentially starting with eighth notes (Figure 3, Line A) and sixteenth notes (Figure 3, Line B). Next, I introduced thirty-second notes (Figure 3, Line C), triplet thirty-second notes (Figure 3, Line D), and then triplet sixteenth notes (Figure 3, Line E). In Line F, I wrote the same rhythm in both measures but beamed them differently because both versions of beaming are indicated in the movement. For each line, I instructed students to write the subdivisions, clap the rhythms out loud, and then perform the rhythm on an open string or on a scale.

The second component in the SRG focused on the main melody (Figure 4). I combined the first half of the melody in the first violin part in mm. 1–8 with the second half of the melody found in the cello part in mm. 9–15. I also included the dynamics, articulations, and bowings. By writing out the melody in this context, students whose parts did not have the melody at all—second violins, viola, double bass—were able to learn and perform the melody as a whole. We were also able to apply the rhythms learned in the first component of the rehearsal guide in context. Additionally, we were able to discuss concepts such as phrasing, bow control, and the intensity of dynamic changes while performing the melody in unison. I also instructed students to memorize the melody so we can focus on performing as a self-lead ensemble, and explore topics such as nonverbal communication, breathing, and moving. By transcribing the main melody as a whole for the entire orchestra, students were able to experience and perform the main melody rather than just listening to it, providing them with a more global view of the piece beyond their individual part.

Figure 4.

Rehearsal guide for the melody in Holberg Suite IV.

Copyright Implications

Before writing an SRG, music teachers must be aware of copyright laws. Making a photocopy, digital copy, or cloud-based copy of copyright-protected music without permission is illegal (National Association for Music Education [NAfME] 2017). Copyright-protected music is any piece that is not currently in public domain. However, music teachers may copy excerpts of works for educational purposes as long as it constitutes less than 10 percent of the whole work (Gilligan 2020; NAfME 2017). Although SRGs may contain an unlimited number of exercises to teach a particular concept in a piece, it must contain a limited number of excerpts from the piece.

Additional Components

SRGs can be expanded beyond one particular technique or musical passage to include other concepts such as biographical information of the composer and arranger, historical concepts relevant to the piece, or a listening list of related repertoire. There are several available resources that provide such repertoire information, including the Teaching Music through Performance in Orchestra book series (Littrell 2008, 2003; Littrell and Racin 2001) and previous articles in the American String Teacher (Laycock 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020). Assignments that could supplement an SRG may include questions, writing prompts, or compositional exercises which may provide artifacts of student learning. Components could also include links to supplemental video lessons which may provide students an opportunity to review and practice concepts on their own time. With more preparation time, additional components could create an entire unit based on one piece or a set of pieces. Expanding SRGs to include additional components may be beneficial for music classes that are taught completely or partially online. Additionally, students will gain in-depth knowledge of a piece that may not otherwise be provided in a typical large-ensemble rehearsal setting.

Conclusion

An SRG can be an incredibly helpful tool when teaching repertoire to students at any level. It is customizable to target the needs of the students in selected repertoire. Although it may take some additional up-front time on the teacher’s part—with tasks including score study, sequencing exercises, inputting notes into music notation software—it helps students learn more efficiently, which may leave more in-class time to focus on additional material. Even though a teacher can create an SRG for every selected piece for each ensemble, it might prove to be time consuming. I suggest that one SRG is created for the most challenging piece per ensemble for each concert cycle. Regardless of how many SRGs are created, an effective SRG will highlight new concepts, reinforce previously learned material, provide exercises that will teach a particular passage, and allow all instrumental parts to perform the same content in unison.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

John Rine A. Zabanal

John Rine A. Zabanal (JRZabanal@gmail.com) is an instructional systems specialist in K–12 music with the Department of Defense Education Activity. He previously held positions as the director of string music education at VanderCook College of Music, adjunct faculty at Florida State University, and orchestra teacher at Ni River Middle School and Riverbend High School in Spotsylvania County Public Schools, Virginia. In addition to serving as a clinician and guest conductor, he published articles in the String Research Journal and Update: Applications to Research in Music Education. He holds a degrees in music education from The Ohio State University (BME) and Florida State University (MME, PhD).

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