Music of Friends– An Orchestra Garage Band


Reprint from Winter 2012 Utah Music Educators Journal


My orchestra classroom is not traditional. It is not a homogenous class of string players or wind instruments. The players are not grouped as middle school, junior high or senior high students. It is a daunting mix of grades 7-12, representing many levels of physical and musical development. The obstacles are overwhelming; the challenges are intimidating, but the rewards are extraordinary. My overall goal for our orchestra is to


form a musical team that can rise above the obstacles to create music from the classics to contemporary styles. It is to inspire each student to develop the skills needed to build a quality ensemble and to go beyond the limits of our group to expand their individual levels, if they wish. In order to achieve these goals, the basics


must be practiced – tone production, scale patterns, technical drills, rhythm studies, etc., etc. The challenge is to imbed these basic skills in repertoire choices and musical activities that will be accessible, multi-leveled and exciting for the students. One project I use to address this challenge is to guide the students into the world of lead sheets, chord charts and alternative styles. I divide this activity into mini-units to


prepare students for the final project. The final project consists of creating ensembles that will perform their own arrangement from a basic lead sheet. The procedure is as follows:


Preparation Activities Components of an Arrangement Student Group Arrangements


Preparation Activities Scale review – Scales are the foundation


for preparing students to play by ear. Daily scale practice includes playing major and minor scales in several different keys without music. Because of the multiple proficiency levels in my classroom, I often have students add difficulty to the basic one octave scale by playing in a more


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difficult range or by playing two octaves in the same beat space as the one octave scale. String players can experiment with playing in higher positions or performing the scale on one string. To develop an ear for interesting chord colors, students play scales in two, three and four part rounds. Varying rhythm patterns furthers variety and builds bowing and tonguing techniques to the scale drills. Chord building – Teaching students to


stack a 1-3-5 triad on root tones is a basic skill for reading chord charts. There are several ways to practice this: (1) Start with explaining and playing the root of a chord. The concept of drone tones can also be introduced here. (2) With a pencil and scratch paper, the students can write a chord triad on root tones called out by the conductor. This helps them spell and visualize chords faster. (3) Students play the 1-3-5-3-1 pitches of the root tone called. (4) Count-off students in 1, 3, and 5’s; then call the chord and have each student play their pitch individually or in groups. (4) Include major and minor chords. (5) Add sevenths, ninths, and sixths for the quick learners. Play-by-ear – Call and response of


simple patterns and melodies heightens aural skills. For practice, the teacher can play patterns, or students can take turns playing the call and the class will play the response on their instruments. If Smart Music is available in the classroom, play- by-ear patterns can be found and played for practice. As students rehearse listening and playing by ear, they can begin to explore the world of “jamming” and improvising. Jazz bands practice playing by ear and improvisation, but orchestras and traditional band ensembles do not often take the time to develop these skills. After high school, many students will not play in college symphonies or traditional performing groups. If they develop some confidence in play-by-ear techniques, many will find enriching opportunities to play with others in musical groups throughout their lives. Lead sheets – Reading a melody line


with chord symbols is another basic skill to be learned. It is best to find a simple folk


Lois Faber


melody with chords. Most folk melodies are public domain which helps to avoid licensing and copyright issues. Prepare a copy of the melody with chord symbols for each student. I have to provide lead sheets in treble, bass, and viola clefs for the different instruments. A music writing program is a wonderful tool to input the basic melody and chords. With that in place, it is easy make to changes as needed. Because my group includes brass and woodwinds, I transpose the melody for trumpets, clarinets, and horns. Sometimes the melodies have to be adapted to the range and technical restrictions of various instruments and to the proficiency levels of individual students. With the tunes distributed, the class is


instructed to play the unison melody line. Because of the simplicity, students can focus on tone, intonation, phrasing and balance. The selection is played many times to internalize the tune. Students play all together, as solos and in groups of 2, 3, 4 or more with different combinations of instruments. This is a great time to experiment with unusual groupings and to listen to the interesting mix of instrumental colors.


Components of an Arrangement Before students can work together in


small ensembles, we explore ideas they can use to make an interesting arrangement of the melody. Listening to examples and drawing students attention to introductions, rhythmic and harmonic variations of the main theme, interludes and ending tags helps to stimulate creative thinking. Then it is time explore these ideas as a group. Introductions – Exploring introduction


ideas such as having the basses start with a drone tone, then adding a fragment of the melody is an effective starter. Students can pick the basic chord progression of the song and play the basic root tones or chord tones as a four measure beginning. We also explore taking a rhythmic idea as an introduction idea. Students often come up with ideas that are unique. Some of these work, some do not. We play the ideas and talk about whether or not they are effective.


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