Sea Shanty Arrangement

Here is an arrangement of "Drunken Sailor" I wrote for combined first- and second-year orchestra students--renamed "Variations on a Sea Shanty."  The version for beginners is mostly just open D and first finger E (with a few open As and first finger Bs later on), all in unison.  It has a variation with dotted quarter/eighth notes, which I taught more by ear.  The intermediate version for second-year orchestra students is all D and A string notes including high E, so cellos get to do a little shifting.  (Looking back at the bass part now, I might rewrite m. 7, 8 and the first note of m. 9 and similar places down an octave to give basses the option not to shift up to high E).  This second-year intermediate version includes the hooked bowing, a few slurs for violin/viola, and double stops for all instruments but the basses.  The theme is the melody in unison, and then violins/violas and cellos/basses are each featured in two variations.

Students enjoyed this melody and recognizing similarities and differences between each of the variations.  They also learned the lyrics from Bonnie Greene's Blue Book:

What do you do with a bow and fiddle...early in the morning?

Saw, saw away I tell you...early in the morning!

Sheet music (all PDFs):

• Beginning orchestra parts
• Intermediate orchestra parts
• Score (Violin I represents the beginning orchestra parts, Violin II is from the intermediate version)

Audio (WAV files) to preview or for students to play along with to practice:

• Sea Shanty audio files (Google Doc)

Again, I like to use clip art instead of labeling parts "beginning" and "intermediate" or by grade level, so you'll see matching images within the beginning and intermediate parts and on the score.

Enjoy!  I'd love to hear if you end up trying out this arrangement with your students!

Everybody Loves Saturday Night Arrangement

Here's a sort of mix-and-match arrangement of "Everybody Loves Saturday Night," from Nigeria.  There are two versions in this arrangement, one for beginners and one for second-year orchestra students.  Each version has its own melody and harmony.  The beginner version has an all open-string harmony with a simplified melody with just D string notes, and the advanced version is mostly D string notes with a few G string notes (including a C# on the G string).  Students did really well learning the syncopated bits after hearing the lyrics sung.  We also would stomp our feet on the eighth rest in practice.

My students studied this piece in the fall of 2020, when we couldn't have full orchestra or in-person concerts.  My colleague and I ended up recording ourselves individually playing the different parts using the Acapella App and then added pictures of our students to create an "Orchestra At-Home Winter Concert" play-along video, which we also used for our virtual version of String Fest that year.  That being said, this is a super flexible arrangement--you could play through the piece twice and assign or give choice to who plays which parts when. 

Here's a link to some history of the song from Art Podell and results of research about its origins from Deanna deCampos (which shares that the song is actually from Ghana from at least 1932 rather than from Nigeria in the 1950s), as well as a website with translations to more languages than I included (and even more languages here).

Sheet music (Alpha notation included at the end of each document):

• Beginning parts (PDF) (melody/open-string harmony)
• Beginning parts (Word document)
• Advanced parts (PDF) (melody/harmony)
• Advanced parts (Word document)

Sheet music with links to audio files (WAV files) to preview or for students to play along with to practice:

• Beginning parts with audio files (PDF) 
• Beginning parts with audio files (Word document)
• Advanced parts with audio files (PDF)
• Advanced parts with audio files (Word document)

Enjoy!

Labels for Equipment and Instrument Racks

 

For our district-wide annual String Fest, we hire movers to transport chair and stand racks as well as cello and bass racks from the elementary schools to the high school's field house.  We want everything to end up racked up properly and returned to the proper school afterwards, so we are careful to label everything clearly.  I like to color code everything by school and add a picture of the school's mascot too.  I laminate the labels and then just use masking tape to affix to both the back and front of racks.

• Template for labels for chair/stand racks

Concert Repertoire for Beginning Orchestra

For winter and spring concerts at my schools, we have a combined orchestra, band, and choir concert that ideally lasts about an hour.  The orchestra portion tends to run about 25 minutes total, so a few pieces performed by the first-year orchestra, a few pieces by the second-year orchestra, and then one or two combined pieces rounds out the orchestra portion.  I meet with my students once a week for 30 minutes during recess for full orchestra and 30 minutes once a week during the school day for small group learning, so these pieces are representative of what students can comfortably have concert-ready.

Here is what my students performed last year at these concerts:

Winter Concert

Beginners:

• Bile 'em Cabbage Down (students plucked an open string harmony part while I played the melody on the violin)
• Slavonic Folk Song (pizz. open string harmony, then pizz. melody, then arco melody/harmony together)
• Serenata by Dale Brubaker (all open strings, arco)

2nd Year Students:

• Skaters' Waltz by Émile Waldteufel, arr. Richard Meyer (in preparation for the next month's district-wide String Fest)
• Sword Dance by Thoinot Arbeau, arr. Bob Phillips

Combined Orchestras:

• Blueberry Jam by Bonnie Greene (in preparation for the next month's district-wide String Fest)
• Jingle Bells by James Pierpont (my arrangement)

Spring Concert

Beginners:

• Ode to Joy (my arrangement)
• It's the Blues Man! (from their Orchestra Expressions book, complete with student soloists improvising the rhythms during their 4-measure solo)
• Student compositions (one four-measure composition per instrument)
• Royal Promenade by Don Brubaker (their first "real" full orchestra piece with independent parts)

2nd Year Students:

• Spring by Antonio Vivaldi, arr. Richard Meyer
• Student compositions (two eight-measure compositions--one for upper strings and one for lower strings)
• Fiddles on Fire by Mark Williams

Combined Orchestras:

• The Lion Sleeps Tonight (arr. Bob Cerulli)

This general format has been working well--in December, I like to start with something that's pizzicato open strings to show where the beginners started at the beginning of the year (and because students would be really comfortable performing that) and work up to something that's arco with D string notes.  And the 2nd year students tend to play fewer pieces (about two big pieces alone) because theirs are longer in length.  If we do only one combined piece at the end, 2nd year students may play three pieces alone; if we do two combined pieces, 2nd year students generally play two pieces alone.

Here are some of the pieces my students have performed for past winter and spring concerts listed in no particular order (student compositions are on every concert too):

Winter Concert

Beginners:

Pizzicato open strings (one piece)

• Les Toreadors (from Orchestra Expressions)
• Three Point Shot (from Orchestra Expressions) 
• Bile 'em Cabbage Down (from Orchestra Expressions supplement)

Pizzicato open strings/pizzicato D string notes/arco open string harmony plus D string melody (one piece played three times)...Or play one of these pieces pizzicato only (open string harmony/D string notes melody/choose melody or harmony third time) and play a second piece with the melody arco only

• Mary Lee (Mary Had a Little Lamb)
• Slavonic Folk Song
• Au Claire de la Lune
• Ode to Joy
• Bile 'em Cabbage

Arco open strings (one piece)

• Serenata by Dale Brubaker (a winter concert tradition!)

Second Year Students:
A round or something pretty simple (one or two pieces--some years I don't do one of these on the concerts and choose two full orchestra pieces instead)

• Hallelujah by William Boyce (easy round in D Major)
• Do, Re, Mi, Fa (easy round in D Major)
• Brudenell Waltz by David R. Bellwood (transposed to D Major with some extra lines added)

Full orchestra piece (one or two pieces--often one will be performed for String Fest the following month and the other one will not)

• I Got Rhythm by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, arr. Michael Story
• Skaters' Waltz by Émile Waldteufel, arr. Richard Meyer
• Sword Dance by Thoinot Arbeau, arr. Bob Phillips
• Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi (my arrangement that I got permission from the copyright holder to write--sorry, can't share) 
• Appalachian Hymn by Soon Hee Newbold
• Hey Fiddle Fiddle! by Brian Balmages
• Les Toreadors by Georges Bizet (my arrangement) 
• Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II (my arrangement)
• Ukrainian Bell Carol by Mykola Leontovich, arr. Sandra Dackow

 
Combined Pieces:
We always end with Jingle Bells!  If we do a second combined piece on this concert, it would be a String Fest piece

• Star of the County Down (melody for 2nd year students; harmony for beginners)
• Variations on a Sea Shanty (my arrangement)
• Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi (my arrangement that I got permission from the copyright holder to write--sorry, can't share)
• Jingle Bells (my arrangement)

 

Spring Concert

Beginners:
Very simple full orchestra piece or a piece from the book

• New World Symphony Theme by Antonín Dvořák, arr. Michael Allen
• Ode to Joy by Ludwig van Beethoven (my arrangement)
• Twinkle Twinkle by W.A. Mozart (my arrangement)
• A Traveler's Song (from Orchestra Expressions--played Andante, then Allegro)

Piece from book with student soloists improvising their own rhythms (they play a 4-measure solo, deciding which quarter notes to change to pairs of eighth notes).  We play a total of four times--first and last times with everyone playing the melody, the second and third times with soloists to include 6 soloists total.

• It's the Blues Man! (from Orchestra Expressions)

"Real" full orchestra piece

• Medieval Kings by Soon Hee Newbold
• St. Lawrence Overture by Elliot Del Borgo 
• First Scale March by Mark Williams
• Royal Promenade by Don Brubaker

Second Year Orchestra:
Two or three full orchestra pieces, possibly one brought back from January's String Fest

• Dragon Dance by Michael Story
• Slavonic Dance No. 1 by Antonín Dvořák, arr. Michael Story
• Jupiter by Gustav Holst (my arrangement)
• Anasazi by John Edmondson
• Fiddles on Fire by Mark Williams
• Honor and Glory by Soon Hee Newbold
• Celtica by Brian Balmages (when I have an advanced violinist who can handle the solo part)
• Rite at Stonehenge by Elliot Del Borgo

Or something a little different

• The Blue Balloon from The Blue Book of Violin Tunes by Bonnie Greene (learned by ear)

Combined Orchestras:

• The 101 by Katie O'Hara LaBrie
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight by George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and Solomon Linda, arr. Bob Cerulli
• Rhythm 'n' Blues by Soon Hee Newbold
• Spring by Antonio Vivaldi, arr. Richard Meyer
• Sailors' Song by Mark Williams
• Slavonic Dance by Antonín Dvořák, arr. Richard Meyer
• William Tell Overture by Gioachino Rossini (my arrangement) 
• We Will Rock You by Brian May, arr. Paul Lavender

Concert info to share with families (Google Docs):

• Winter concert info
• Spring concert info

Please see this post for a Google Sheet of repertoire options organized by unit/concert.

For a more in-depth look at my winter concerts including logistics and sample speaking parts, please see this post :)

Which pieces do you like to program for a beginning orchestra concert?  Which pieces should I consider for future concerts?

String Fest Seating Chart Template

Our annual district-wide String Fest is a big event for us to plan.  One part of the planning process is figuring out where each of the 200+ elementary string players will sit in our giant combined orchestra.  We want kids to share a stand with someone from their school but to sit near kids from other schools.  We place second-year players in the front rows of the orchestra and first-year players in the back few rows.  I'm not quite sure of the magic number of chairs/stands per row regarding space, so some rows end up being a little roomier than others--or we may rearrange a bit once we see everything set up in the field house--but at least we have a pretty close idea of where everyone will end up from the start.

This is pretty much my step-by-step process:

1. Determine number of students per instrument per grade level per school.
2. Draw orchestra seating chart, using dashes for stands (use pencil!).
3. Add dividing lines with colored pencil to show the different instrument sections and grade levels.
4. Number each stand from left to right for each row (violin side to cello side). 
5. Write in school abbreviations for each stand, trying to be equal about school representation in the front row and outside stands (if there is an odd number of students at a school within a section, use a dash to pair up students from two different schools).
6. Include total number of chairs and stands per row at the bottom of the page.
7. Make a copy of the Google doc template, and then update the number of chairs per instrument/section/row in the copied document.
8. Change the font for the seat numbers (1A., 1B., etc.) to correspond with each of the schools.
9. Scan seating chart and share that and the Google doc with all orchestra teachers.
10. Now each teacher can add their students' names to the Google doc.

String Fest seating chart template

I do show students ahead of time where they'll sit and by whom, but then I also make name cards to tape on the music stands.  I use the following Word document with Word's "mail merge" feature (Mailings/Start Mail Merge/Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard) to pull student names/instrument/grade level from an Excel sheet of my rosters.  I'll also include an image of the school mascot to help students more quickly spot their own name card.  And then, of course, I do color-code the cards by instrument.  When printing, be sure to choose "2 pages per sheet."  One of these years I will type up the row and seat number in the roster to include with the mail merge, but so far I've just been hand-writing the row and seat number on each card.  I put the name cards in numerical order (by row, then seat number), and then it's quick work to set them on the proper stand and tape them up the day-of.

String Fest name card template (2 names per page to cut apart and tape on stand)

String Fest name card template (1 name per page to fold over stand and view from both directions)

 

String Fest Reflection Letters

Our annual district-wide String Fest field trip and concert is done for another year!  Instead of having students write up a reflection sheet to share their thoughts about their experience, this year elementary orchestra students wrote letters to the middle and high school orchestra students.  They answered essentially the same questions I would have asked them anyway, but this way they were able to communicate with students they performed alongside last week.  We took a large chunk of time during full orchestra to write letters, and I graded them based on how many questions were responded to in the letter.  Next, I sent them to our middle and high school teachers to distribute to their students.  Students really got into this writing assignment because they knew they were writing to real people--some even addressed their letter to an older sibling or neighbor in orchestra :)

Elementary students were super excited when they came to full orchestra a later week and found handwritten letters to each of them on their stands!  The high school orchestra members had taken a letter, written a response, and then stapled the two together so it was easy to return to the correct elementary musician.  The response letters were so positive and encouraging; it was so nice to read through them!  What a great way to make connections between the different grade levels and schools in our orchestra community! 

Update: I've added a second letter template with sentence starters to make it easier for those students who need the support.  I print the letters double-sided, and students can choose which side they write theirs on.  I've also started marking in the top right corner the student's school and grade level because each middle/high school receives letters from two elementary schools.  This way it is easier to sort and send the letters back to the correct elementary school :)

• Letter templates plus directions (Google Doc)