"Creating Musical Flexibility Through the Ensemble"

Brandt Schneider opens his article, "Creating Musical Flexibility Through the Ensemble" by stating "Bands and orchestras are often repertoire machines – churning out a fixed collection of pieces year after year." I would amend this statement to include choirs as well. This was my experience in my own music education, class time was spent learning a number of pieces and focused on performing. As I begin to think about developing my own class room, I was unsure of how I can teach students music for the concerts while still incorporating the other skills I must teach them. This article is tremendously useful providing advice on how to help students develop as all around musicians and make your ensemble more than a "repertoire machine." 

To begin Mr. Schneider assessed his ensemble and determined the four areas he would like to improve; musical discipline, technique, theory, composition. These techniques are vital to being a good musician, and can often be overlooked in the context of an ensemble. I like how Mr. Schneider recognized that repetition is a good way for students to learn, so he included listening and ear training exercises in every rehearsal. He incorporated singing solfege with playing the songs on their instruments. This helps them to hear the intervals and develop their listening skills. He also had his students work on the same songs in all 12 keys. Transposition is a very important and difficult skill, by creating a sort of game for the practice the challenge is also fun and less stressful. The "Switching Genres" game also helps to keep the practice entertaining by letting the students play with the style of the song. This game helps students understand the characteristics of other genres and how to apply it to the music. In addition, the students played each instrument part. This also helps them practice their listening ability. I also like this technique because it helps them develop an understanding of how their individual part fits in with the rest of the ensemble. It helps them appreciate what parts they should listen for and helps the overall blend of the ensemble. 

The article includes a recording from the earlier portion of Mr. Schneider's rehearsal process. The ensemble has many pitch issues. However, it is still impressive that some of the students can accomplish that with only four weeks on their instruments. Later in the year, Mr. Schneider says they went to a festival and shared this rehearsal technique with an audience and it went very well! It is very impressive that they were able to accomplish that from where they began the year!