String Fest Timeline for Planning

 

String Fest is a huge undertaking.  It involves ALL the district's orchestra students and teachers, from elementary through high school.  Each grade level prepares a piece of their own to perform at the String Fest evening concert, and then everyone prepares the same multi-level grand finale piece.  There is a field trip to the high school's field house during the day where each group gets their own rehearsal time and then the combined groups get a combined rehearsal in the afternoon followed by the evening concert for families.  It is a great opportunity to build community and for elementary orchestra students to see and hear the older students and to envision themselves as one day performing as part of the high school orchestras.  String Fest used to be in May, but when signing up for middle school electives got moved up to mid-January, we began scheduling String Fest at the end of January to help serve as a retention tool.

Planning for this one-day event begins the previous spring with scheduling the date and continues throughout the fall and early winter with a lot of collaboration between all the orchestra teachers.  The district that I attended as a student did not have an event like this, so I had a lot to learn when I began teaching in a district that has a tradition of an annual String Fest.  To keep track of everything that needed to be done, I created a timeline for planning.  There is so much that needs to happen behind the scenes in order for the day to run smoothly and can be overwhelming.

Please check with your admin/school/district for procedures and policies (like scheduling dates, reserving rooms, permission slip forms, how to handle student meds on a field trip, etc.), but here is the guide I created to help myself not to forget any of the details from year to year along.  It also includes links to some supporting documents and blog posts:

• String Fest timeline for planning (Google Doc)

I'm sure I'll be adding more at some point, but here's a start towards planning a district-wide String Fest.  What else would you like to know?  Or, what additional resources would be helpful to see?  Happy planning!

Women Wow the Music World! Bulletin Board

March is Women's History Month, and this year I wanted to create a bulletin board highlighting female musicians throughout history.  Thanks to my mom for coming up with the title: "Women Wow the Music World!"(and for cutting out and mailing me the letters)!

As with some previous bulletin boards (see the post "Celebrate Music with these Great Americans!" for Black History Month), I printed out the "condensed" file, trimmed and laminated each half sheet, and then attached them to a folded piece of colored paper.  If you'd rather save some steps, just print out the "double sided" file, fold each page in half, and you're ready to staple them to the bulletin board!

For each musician, I included her name and picture on the front and then her name, dates, country, instrument, profession, genre, and one famous title when you lift up the flap.

Here are the 24 musicians included (feel free to add your own):

• Martha Argerich
• Amy Beach
• Hildegard von Bingen
• Nadia Boulanger
• Regina Carter
• Cécile Chaminade
• Sarah Chang
• Sandra Dackow
• Jacqueline du Pre
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Aretha Franklin
• Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
• Jennifer Higdon
• Billie Holiday
• Alma Schindler Mahler
• Midori
• Soon Hee Newbold
• Florence Beatrice Price
• Clara Schumann
• Ruth Crawford Seeger
• Anoushka Shankar
• Bessie Smith
• Esperanza Spalding
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Women Wow the Music World!--heading

• Google doc

Names, pictures, and trivia (condensed)

• Word document
• PDF

Names, pictures, and trivia (print double sided)

• Word document
• PDF

Enjoy!

C Major Packet and Scavenger Hunt

As we get into our unit on the key of C Major, I present my students with a packet of pieces that use the C Major key signature (there is one piece in A minor).  To become better acquainted with these new pieces, I tell students that I have a scavenger hunt for them.  Some questions will have one more than one possible answer, and the same title may be used more than once.

I do very few written worksheets in orchestra, but I like this one because it's a good review of many topics that we've covered over the course of the year (anacrusis, triad, note-reading etc.) and it exposes students to some new musical concepts that we haven't officially covered (6/8 time signature, dotted quarter-eighth note rhythm).  And when students get to the music history questions, their heads always turn to the music history timeline wall to figure out where each composer would fit.  Nice use of resources :)

I tried to include a variety of public domain pieces, some familiar and some not so familiar.  Here are the contents:

• Pop Goes the Weasel
• Theme from Surprise Symphony
• November (Bohemian Folk Song)
• Sailor's Hornpipe
• Mexican Hat Dance
• America, the Beautiful
• Red Wing
• Minuet in C

Enjoy!

• C Major repertoire packet (Word document)
   
• C Major repertoire packet (PDF)
   
• Scavenger hunt (Word document)
   
• Scavenger hunt (PDF)
   
• Answer key (PDF)

(See a second version of the C Major packet with some different repertoire and updated scavenger hunt here)

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 2: Timeline and Documents

When planning out the Solo/Ensemble unit, I work backwards from the date of the festival itself.  Since we meet for small groups only once a week, I really have to be mindful of the S/E timeline so students have enough time to prepare.

Saturday: Solo/Ensemble festival

1 week before: Tour day!  Students perform for one classroom during their small group time.  If there's extra time, we'll go to a second performance site like the office or special education room or music room.  Students perform their solo pieces first, and we end with ensembles.  Before the school day, I set up chairs for cellists and music stands outside the different classrooms so everything is ready to bring into the classroom for the performance time and all I have to lug around the school is my camera :)  To get comment sheets ready for the Saturday festival, I use mail merge on Word to automatically add the headings (student name, piece, school, site, time, etc.) and print them on colored paper by school to enable quick sorting after the event.

2 weeks before: Dress rehearsal day!  Students get in front of their small group, say their introduction, and practice playing through their piece(s) without stopping.  I jot down final comments to help during their last week of home practice.  I do not want tour day to be the first time students are up in front of an audience playing through their piece.  I want them to get their jitters out of the way during dress rehearsal day and to make sure everyone has their introduction planned out.  Any late S/E signups should all be in, so I put together the Saturday morning schedule and share that with students and families.

• S/E dress rehearsal comment sheet (Word document)
• S/E dress rehearsal comment sheet (PDF)
• S/E dress rehearsal grading sheet template (Google Sheet)

3-4 weeks before: Rehearse!  During small groups, a big chunk of time is dedicated to rehearsing with students' ensemble groups.  Students also figure out what they're going to say for their introduction, using the introduction template as a guide. I also send out a tour sign-up sheet (using Google Sheet) where teachers can choose a time that works best for them to have students come perform for their class.

• Sample tour sign-up sheet for teachers (Google form)
• Introduction template (Word document)
• Introduction template (PDF)

5-6 (or so) weeks before: The last 5-10 minutes of small groups are dedicated to practicing individual parts of S/E pieces.  I quickly go around helping students--especially in the area of rhythm--to hopefully make the first combined rehearsal with their ensemble go smoothly.  The warm-up for each of these weeks gets a different emphasis, based on the different categories on the S/E rubric: rhythm, LH, RH, etc.  This is the time when I tell students about the Saturday morning optional festival and send home the sign-up sheet for that.  I remind students that everyone will go on tour during school, and then the S/E festival on that Saturday morning is a highly encouraged optional event.  We briefly look over the rubric to see which areas the adjudicator would be commenting on.

• Letter/permission slip sample (Word document)
• Letter/permission slip sample (PDF)
• Online registration form template (Google Form)
• Rubric (Word document)
• Rubric (PDF)
• Updated rubric (Word document)--includes a category for body format instead of tone
• Updated rubric (PDF)

2nd week of unit: During full orchestra, students form their ensembles and fill out a planning sheet, indicating which piece(s) they're planning to learn.  Every student turns one in, and there's a place to list a solo piece and an ensemble piece plus who is in their group.  I type these up into one master list for myself to make sure everyone is accounted for.  I talk with those students who signed up for just a solo to see if they also had an interest in playing in an ensemble and help set that up if desired.  Repertoire choices may change over the next few weeks, but at least everyone is leaving class that day with an idea of which piece(s) to focus their home practice on.

• S/E planning sheet (Word document)
• S/E planning sheet (PDF)

1st week of unit: Explain what Solo/Ensemble is, hand out the list of choices plus additional repertoire, and give some time to try out options.  I tell students that at the end of this unit we will be going on tour around school to perform our piece(s) for an audience.

• S/E options (Word document)
• S/E options (PDF)

This timeline covers roughly two months of school.  During this time--especially at the beginning of the unit--we are focused on more than just Solo/Ensemble in orchestra, and this advance planning helps me to balance all different areas of what students are learning during this time.


See also: 

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 1: Description and Additional Repertoire

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 3: Creating the Schedule

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 4: Festival Day!