10. PRACTICE TIME: About half the students re- THE SCHOOL HAD AN ORCHESTRA
ported practicing between one and two hours a day. PROGRAM. Officially, students need to
Three claimed to practice more than two hours a day, be members in good standing of their
and two wrote that they rarely practice. (No one school program to audition in the first
checked off the “never” box.) place. However, of the 6, 2 (33 %)
claimed to not be involved at all, while
So what does this all mean? Generally, I was fairly im- the other 4 each claimed one musical
pressed with the commitment of our string players. A activity. This compares to the 12 private
“typical” Maine All-State string player has been playing school students, where 2 (17%) claimed
for close to 10 years, is very involved in their school’s no involvement, and 2 had more than 5,
program as well as youth/community music programs, and the 33 public school students, where
studies privately outside of school, and practices regu- 4 (12%) claimed no involvement, and 9
larly. There were some things that struck me, however: (27%) were involved in 5 or more musi-
•
Although half of the Maine string play- cal activities. Do we need to be reaching
ers are coming from their school pro- out more to involve homeschoolers in
grams, three quarters started through our districts? Also, do we need to be
private lessons. This means that, even in more insistent that they be involved?
the schools where string study is offered,
•
Our youth and community groups are
many players took the initiative to start doing an excellent job bringing our play-
on their own (often before string lessons ers in, with close to 80% playing in an
were offered through the school). Did it outside group. This is a great experience
make a difference to their desire to play, for our students, and for some may be
though, to be seeing older students play- their only chance to play a string instru-
ing around them? I would be curious to ment in a large ensemble. For many
see if this phenomenon also hit the wind others, it could be their one chance at a
and percussion players. (Likely not; full orchestra experience. We should
fractional size string instruments make it continue to support these groups and en-
possible for students to start violin at courage involvement as much as possi-
very young ages. They might, however, ble.
be able to start early on a different in-
•
String students seem to want be involved
strument, such as piano, and bring a with music programs, whether there is an
good breadth of music experience with orchestra or not. I was impressed (and
them when they do start band.) pleased) with the variety of ensembles
•
Why are a third of Maine’s string players students reported being involved in.
opting to not play in their district orches- This shows that many of us, even those
tra? I know several districts have who claim to be non-string teachers, are,
worked hard to get their district orchestra in fact, teaching our string players.
established, and are now working hard to
maintain it. It also surprised me that of
Linda Vaillancourt can be contacted at
the 17 that wrote they did not play in
lvaillancourt@nya.org
their district orchestra, 8 came from
schools with string programs. Do we
need to be working harder to encourage
district involvement?
•
Are we leaving out our homeschoolers?
Six participated in All-State, so they are
aware of some of our activities, but I was
dismayed by how few of them played in
their school’s ensembles, EVEN WHEN

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40