Teaching orchestra

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After seeing a fingering poster online that another orchestra teacher had created, I knew I wanted to make a set for myself. I cut strips of black paper at various widths to show the strings from thickest to thinnest (1/4", 1/2", 3/4", 1"), laminated the poster, then used Velcro to mark where each note would go. Each letter name bubble was cut out, laminated, and Velcro-ed. I also taped a plastic baggie to the back of the poster to store the unused notes. At one school, I have a strip of…

From time to time, we have checkup days in small groups, where each student plays for me individually and then I can give some one-on-one feedback to each student. I prefer to emphasize the value of the individualized feedback, talking about what's going well and where there is room for improvement, rather than calling it a playing test and emphasizing the grade part of it. I do enter grades from these checkups, but I don't think that's as useful to students as the one-on-one mini-lesson…

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A few days ago a received a letter from a reader: I teach 4th and 5th grade beginning strings and orchestra. I absolutely love you...

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Wanna be a cool orchestra teacher? Try this idea with your beginners! I've been listening to the song 'Keep Your Head Up' and I love it! Perfect for bow exercises...but it got me thinking... If I could change the words a little - especially in the chorus - it would be perfect to use to teach proper instrument position. So I changed the words to the song: I plan on having my orchestra learn the words (at least to the chorus) and sing them while we are setting our left hand positions. I…

I've been using lots of videos to help my students grasp the concepts I'm teaching in class. Videos are such a great way to begin a rehearsal. It settles everyone down, everyone is intrigued, and it gives me 1 or 2 minutes to re-set my brain and gear myself for another class. A few tips for using videos in class: *Always preview the entire video. I make sure every video is appropriate for school and I never show a video I have not pre-screened. If there is one or two swear words. I edit…

Are you looking for a super fun game you can play with your orchestra students that won't take much time to prepare? Try BATTLESHIP! This game works great to review any type of music students have been learning. It's very simple to play and students love it! Here's how to play... 1. Choose your music. I chose one of our concert pieces, but you can use exercises from method books or anything you like. 2. Project your gameboard on screen. I quickly made a gameboard using JAMBOARD. You can use…

I like to call Friday rehearsals 'Friday Fun Day!' I want Fridays to be a celebration of all we learned during the week, but also serve as a meaningful review and reinforcement of material. Last week one of my students said, 'It's funny you call Fridays 'Friday fun day' because every day is fun!' Learning an instrument is fun...that means the pressure is off! No need to spend hours and hours planning intricate games. I've found my favorite Friday Fun Day is a review day using Ninja Belts as…