In The Beginning: Part One by Steven Sacco
One teacher's experience starting an instrumental music program at his elementary school
This article documents my experiences beginning a new instrumental music program in a public school district in New Jersey. My hope is that anyone interested in starting a new program could learn from these experiences and follow a similar course. Part One deals mainly with organizational procedures needed to launch the program; Part Two will focus on ways to nurture and grow the fledgling program.
In 2002, I was hired to start the first instrumental music program in the Rochelle Park School District in New Jersey. The district consists of one school, pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, with about 475 students. The proposed music program would be available to students in grades four through eight, which is typical.
Considering the small numbers and stature of the children in this age group, I thought it best to limit the size of the instruments we offered initially. We began the program by offering flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet and percussion. In the second year, a few of the older children were able to move to larger instruments, such as trombone and baritone horn.
Over the first few years, the school made purchases of large percussion instruments, including bass drum, timpani, tam-tam, cymbals, etc. Parents were responsible for renting instruments such as winds, brass, snare drum and bell kits for their children through a rent-to-purchase contract from Victor's House of Music in Paramus, New Jersey. This arrangement offers several benefits to the music program–avoiding large start-up costs for the district, letting parents partner with children in committing to the music program, and giving students a stake in the responsibility for care of their instrument. In addition, while under contract, student instruments are insured against theft, and any repairs needed are made at no charge.
I selected a method book that meets the national standards for arts education and has a well-annotated teacher's resource manual. It is important that the book feature beginning lessons in the range best suited for each instrument, have a variety of interesting and challenging repertoire from stylistically different composers, have a unique solo piece for each instrument with piano accompaniment for students who are advancing quickly, and last, have a self-correcting play-along CD with which students can practice.
To initially reach students for participation, I set up an assembly for grades four through eight. I hired professional players to come in and give a demonstration, talking about the flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and percussion instruments. I wrote a letter to parents outlining the nature of the program, describing how the rental agreement would work, as well as the tentative schedule for lessons and ensembles. I stapled that letter to a rental contract ready to go home with students that day. From that first assembly, we had 75 children sign up. Our flourishing program still has about 75 students in it every year.
The instrumental band program is fundamentally "pullout." Lessons are given during the school day, and ensemble rehearsals meet before school at 7:15. The lesson schedule is organized by homogenous instrumental groupings: Flute I, Flute II, Flute III, etc. For the instrumental lessons, I developed a rotating schedule so students would not miss the same class week after week. Students are assigned a day for their lesson. This is done so they can more easily remember to bring their instruments to school; the student only has to remember to bring the instrument on Monday, for example.
The first week the student has a lesson first period, the second week second period and so on until the schedule returns to first period again. The rotating schedule makes it easier for parents to accept their child being pulled out of class for a music lesson. I distribute the entire schedule with all the rotations to the faculty and send them home to the parents at the beginning of the school year. Faculty members post the schedules in their classrooms. I also post each week's rotation on my door so students can check in at their convenience to see when they should come for their lessons.
Our performing ensembles rehearse Tuesday through Friday from 7:15 till 8:00 a.m., before homeroom. We have two bands–a beginner band and a concert band. Each rehearses twice a week, concert band on Tuesday and Thursday, beginner band on Wednesday and Friday. After about six months, every new instrumental student is placed in the beginner band. The beginner band is the "farm club," to use a sports analogy, for the concert band.
Arriving in the beginner band, students start to progress through the book at a much faster pace. They go from seeing me just once a week, for their lesson, to three times a week–a lesson plus two band rehearsals. Even if they don't practice at home as much as I would like, they have just tripled the time they play in front of me at school simply by their being placed in band.
In the concert band, which is our most advanced band and the one that travels for performances, I assign section leaders (principals) who are responsible for helping their peers in their section. They are also responsible for making sure all markings for their section are in the parts. We have a concert mistress who is in charge of tuning the band and is the overall student leader of the band.
I also pick one student as librarian, whose prime function is to manage the music. She distributes the music folders before rehearsals and performances and collects them afterwards. She makes sure that all the parts for all the pieces are in the correct folders and that the folders are filed in score order.
The above experiences provided the organizational framework for launching our new band program. In Part Two, we will focus on ways to nurture a young program through performance, recruitment and retention.
Dr. Steven Sacco divides his time between teaching instrumental music at Midland School in New Jersey and serving on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music, where he teaches composition, theory and musicology.
