Teaching Elementary Orchestra : C/E String Notes

Orchestra Expressions gets to the C and E string notes pretty late in Book 1, and I like to introduce them to first-year players in the spring, as we are preparing for our spring concert. I created a double-sided sheet where students learn about half steps and whole steps to figure out the names of the notes on their newest string on the front and then the back side is music that uses these new notes.

I'll have a student read a paragraph out loud, and then we'll go back dissect it together, pointing to the notes on the keyboard poster to figure out the notes on the E or C string one by one and get them written down. It is fun to see students make predictions about what the letter names or sharps will be, and then I encourage them to see if their guesses are correct as we work through the sheet together. Many will independently fill in the corresponding bubbles on their fingering chart that's taped in their folder as we go through this sheet too. Otherwise we do that together the following week as a quick review.

Ideally each student in the small group is on the same instrument, but this tends to be the time of year when I have to do combined small groups or creative scheduling due to testing or field trips so I'll have multiple instruments in a group. When this happens, I have to be careful to keep the pace moving so we can get through all the notes/fingerings but not to go so fast that I am losing/confusing students--this can be a tricky lesson for some! It can also be tricky to play these pieces together since they are in different keys depending on the instrument/string--I'll use my judgement in the moment if it makes more sense to have the E string instruments play while C string instruments air-bow or say finger numbers or clap/count or just listen and then switch or to just have everyone play the parallel 5ths together. In full orchestra, we'll do "show and tell" with one of the pieces to avoid the parallel 5ths :)

In the both the Word document and PDF below, I've included three different versions of the sheet music--one with regular notation, one with a few Alpha notes at the beginning of each piece, and one with all Alpha notes.

C/E string notes worksheet/repertoire

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