Personal Project Proposal

Beginner Pedagogy Handbook for the Orchestra Classroom

Proposal

In the U.S., it is custom that we start students on stringed instruments in a large classroom setting all together. Violin, viola, cello and bass students all learn how to play their instrument, including how to hold it, carry it, put it in a case together in a classroom where the number of students can be anywhere from 1 to 100.

While attending university for music education in the U.S., most programmes have a “strings class” where you learn how to play the instrument on a basic level and how to teach it to others. Most of these classes however barely give you enough time to learn about the other instruments, let alone enough experience to remember the important pedagogy parts of teaching the instruments.

My goal is to create a spiral bound handbook that would be used by teachers who teach mixed instrument beginner strings in a group setting. To be most useful, it would need to have the beginning posture, setup of the instrument, key phrases to help the student remember the posture, and ways to make sound on the instrument for each instrument in the group setting. To make the handbook useful with managing a classroom of an unknown size, the book would need to have all of the previously listed pedagogy ideas as well as games to help the student’s memory of the pedagogy, classroom behaviour techniques, ways to set up the posture as a group instead of individually doing each instrument, include pages with pictures of beginning posture that teachers would be able to photocopy for the students, and most importantly be in a format that is easy for the teacher to reference while on the podium in front of the students.

This handbook is like others in its field but still brings a new element. There are many other books that have the pedagogy of all four instruments for teachers who may have to teach strings but do not have a background in strings, or for the string teacher who is only comfortable on one or two of the four instruments. These books are massive and formatted in a way where you would do your research on the side and write down your notes into your lesson plans, little phrases that you picked up from the reading- very much a resource not used while teaching. Other resources have “key phrases” one would say to students in a large setting as well, but they are buried in other text and not easy to find unless you purposely sat down and read the whole chapter.

In this handbook I would really like to strive for “ease of access” in terms of text format. The goal of this handbook is to be used by the teacher as a reference while in front of students. Teachers focus on numerous things when conducting class and if they need to reference some part of the handbook it needs to be quick so they can continue focusing on their students and the lesson. In order for them to reference something quick, there is no time to read a paragraph or sometimes even to find their underlined phrase on the page.

My goal is to research other books that already exist and find why they are too big/wordy by analysing the format, text size, layout, or how they are the opposite and very easy to read/reference. I will start this process by analysing the books I have tried to use while teaching as well as others that are advertised as an in-class handbook.

Another part of research I would like to include in this project is asking other orchestra teacher colleagues about their experience. Areas I would like to ask them about to help with the development of my handbook would include:

• What string handbooks/resources have they used, and did they work well or not and why

• What are their methods of setting up beginners in a small and large group (this will depend on the teacher)

• What are some key behaviour phrases or actions they use will need to state the age and size of student group as well as a few other clarifications)

• What are some string specific phrase they might use (for example something that might help with posture about the instrument or other music terminology they put into a key phrase)

• If they could have used as a resource in front of them what would they have wanted it to include (or could still use!)

The goal of these questions and topics is to not just rely on books and my knowledge but to find other information from people who have experience trying different techniques in their teaching and potentially try to narrow down if there is a type of way that works best or most overall. How I plan on communicating with these teachers is mainly via email and through a survey or questionnaire.

My main research question: What does the music teacher need to know in order to effectively teach beginner string pedagogy in mixed group strings teaching?

Proposed submission format

I would like to put my project in the form of a spiral bound handbook. My reason for this is a handbook is easy to carry around and a physical resource (unlike a website) where the user could mark pages, tab them, underline/highlight, etc. The handbook should be fairly light and thin, making it a small addition to what a teacher usually carries with them while teaching.

I would also consider the idea of having a classroom sized poster that coordinates with the posture part of the handbook for the teacher to have up in their classroom. This would allow students to view the posture pictures that the teacher is also viewing, plus it would be handy for the teacher if they were not near their handbook due to classroom situations. I would also like for the handbook to include pages of beginner posture for each instrument that the teacher could photocopy for the students.

Resources

The resources I will be using are books that are about string pedagogy, books about teaching large ensembles (specifically strings or generic as well), websites, learning about format of books/ease of access, potential online survey/questionnaire forms, and reaching out to other music teachers initially via email with more potential ways of communication in the future.

Preliminary sources / bibliography:

Colwell, Richard J., and Michael P. Hewitt. The Teaching of Instrumental Music. 4th ed. Routledge, n.d.

Davies, Leonora, and Paul Harris. Group Music Teaching in Practice. Faber Music Limited, n.d.

Feldman, Evan, and Ari Contzius. Instrumental Music Education: Teaching with the Musical and Practical in Harmony. Routledge, n.d.

Donald L. Hamann and Robert Gillespie, Strategies for Teaching Strings: Building a Successful String and Orchestra Program, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Klotman, Robert H. Teaching Strings. Schirmer Books, n.d.

O’Farrell, Larry, and Margaret Meban. ‘Arts Education and Instrumental Outcomes: An Introduction to Research, Methods and Indicators’. UNESCO, 2003.

Rolland, Paul. The Teaching of Action in String Playing. Alfred Music, n.d.

Springgay, Stephanie, Rita L. Irwin, and Sylvia Wilson Kind. ‘A/r/Tography as Living Inquiry Through Art and Text’. Sage, 2005. https://doi.org/1077800405280696.

Looking into a few of these resources so far, there are a couple that are very similar to what I am looking to accomplish with my handbook. The first resource is Robert Klotman’s Teaching Strings. This resource gives a very in-depth overview of teaching strings in an American classroom that includes what to teach and the order to teach string curriculum for all of the years the student would have orchestra class in a school district (years from usually 10 years old to 18 years old across multiple schools, not necessarily the same teacher.) In the section that focuses on beginning string students, he uses very clear pictures and formatted the text as a numbered list of how to set up a student for the first time on their instrument. This is similar to how I am thinking about formatting my handbook however there are gaps that my project is looking to fill. In Klotman’s book, he believes it is impossible to set up students in a group setting and that it must be done individually. In addition, there are no classroom management tips for the teacher to use even though it would seem the book is written for a teacher who teaches in a group because Klotman provides arranged versions of repertoire for a string orchestra. In my handbook, I am looking to provide ways teachers can set up beginners as a group, provide classroom management tips, and only focus on teaching beginning string students instead of multiple years/levels of instruction.

Another resource that is similar to what I am looking to produce with my handbook is Group Music Teaching in Practice by Paul Harris and Leonora Davies. This resource provides teachers and school leaders (non-music) an insight into setting up group music programmes within a school, information on differentiation and student progress, and lesson planning topics. When analysing this book for the specifics of what I am looking for in my handbook, I found that the format used was very easy to read. Later in the text it started including bullet points, boxes with a border to point out certain topics, and even musical activities/examples a teacher could easily reproduce on the chalk/white board. I found the lesson plan examples particularly useful towards the end of the book because of the clear format and examples that could be used as a guide while in front of students. The main difference of the handbook I would like to produce is that the topic would be about teaching beginning strings in a group setting and include management techniques within how to teach the students. The format would be very similar to Group Music Teaching in Practice as it accomplishes ideas I have about my handbook.

In the list of resources I have included for my bibliography, there are a few texts I have listed but have not yet been able to read as they are mainly U.S. based and are not commonly found in libraries here in the UK. I am working on finding ways to access those texts (whether they are requested through the library, sent from colleagues/friends from the U.S., etc.) so that I can further look into what already exists in this area of research. I mainly included them as I know they are similar to my area of research and plan on using them in the future.