Music in our schools: Getting students in tune

For the Chelsea Standard

The band

Written by Rick Catherman and Jim Otto

The Chelsea fifth and sixth grade band experience provides students with some of the most exciting and important opportunities for young students. The skills they learn and the habits they establish, provide the foundation for success not only in music learning and performance, but other disciplines, for the rest of their school careers, and throughout their life.

I remember the “magic” of my beginning band experience as a young student myself. Opening the instrument case for the first time, seeing that shiny new cornet, and learning for the first time how to make a sound. I know that for my parents, and I’m sure all parents, that the first sound wasn’t perhaps the most pleasing – but with my continued work (and my parents continued support and patience) those sounds became more and more enjoyable every day. I couldn’t have imagined at that early stage in my life that my first band experience would provide me with the opportunity to pursue music as a professional musician and teacher, and I didn’t continue with band throughout school with that as a goal, I just knew that for some reason I was drawn to the band, and because I had great teachers that gave me the skills and inspired me with a passion to work toward excellence not only in my music, but in everything that I did.

My goal is for every fifth and sixth grade band student to have a similar opportunity that I did as a young student. We work to build both strong musical skills, and lifelong skills that will benefit them in all they do. Research suggests that children who learn and study music achieve at a higher level in other academic areas, and do better on standardized tests than student who don’t study music. In Chelsea we’re proud that many of the highest achieving academic students are also student-musicians, many of whom are band members. These are extra-musical benefits that our students acquire; however our main goal is for students to develop strong musical skills, and to enjoy their band experience – in short, we want them to have fun with their learning. Our band members work hard – even at the early stages, but learning to make music is a rewarding experience too. Working with classmates and friends toward a common goal, and achieving that goal in performance is extremely rewarding – even for a young musician.

Our 5th and 6th Grade Band members learn everything from how to be responsible for and assemble the instrument, to producing a characteristic sound, to note and rhythm reading, and fundamental music terminology, theory, and history. The most exciting and fun part however culminates with the concert performance – the 5th Grade Band performance happens at the end of the school year at an evening concert – with mini-performances taking place throughout the school year during class time and other special band events. The 6th Grade Band has more performance opportunities – including three evening concerts (fall, winter, spring.) Both the 5th and 6th Grade Band members also have the opportunity to perform as soloists and in small groups at the annual Chelsea Bands Mardi Gras Concert Celebration in the spring.

We are proud of our music department, and what we’re able to provide the students of the Chelsea Schools. Our goal is to be able to continue the very best in music education, to teach and assist our students in meeting their individual goals, while working to achieving at the very highest level to meet our band group goals. We believe in what music education does for young people, and we are fortunate to be a part of a school district and community that also believes in the value of a high quality music education.

The Choir

By Steve Hinz

Choir at the 5th and 6th grade level introduces students to their voices in a more refined performance level then they previously experienced. Our purpose is to create great musical performance and to learn something about themselves through the music studied and through the experience of working together.

Choir members learn specific performance techniques associated with their voice. They will also learn skills necessary for ensemble performance success. Cooperative learning in choir stresses the importance of understanding one’s job and how their work contributes to our group’s success, along with the added benefits of discipline, self-control, and respect for self and others.

Choir rehearsals have these components:

1. Singing - They discover choral music of many different styles, building individual skills. They notice improvement in regards to range, volume, pitch centering and development of color.

2. Development of Reading Skills - The goal is be to become independent readers by learning solid music reading skills. They attack this important element by training their ears with the use of solfege (do, re, mi)

3. Development of Ensemble Skills - They not only directly work on group skills through singing, but through pitched percussion playing as well. Listening and responding to others is key for success

The orchestra

By Jed Fritzmeier

“How does music make the world a better place?” was a question recently posed by one of Chelsea’s 6th grade orchestra students at the beginning of class as we started the D major scale. Questioning the value of music is a tremendous step in committing to the discipline needed to succeed in music. From a teacher’s perspective, music is important because music answers questions that cannot be answered through any other form of communication. As the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein said, “Music explains the unexplainable and describes the indescribable.” The goal of the Chelsea orchestra program – and any music program – is to bring to students the highest level of artistic expression allowing students to explore all aspects of life from a personal, unique perspective. Answering the original question compels other questions such as what really is music? When the orchestra was asked this very question at Chelsea High School, a German exchange student spoke up immediately, “music allows me to come to America and participate in orchestra without knowing the spoken language very well. Music is a universal language.” In the end, the goal of the Chelsea orchestras is to develop student’s technical skills to their maximum potential allowing these young musicians an opportunity to experience performing great music – an hopefully have fun doing so.

Our philosophy of music education in the Chelsea Public Schools is a “learn by doing” mentality. Our Chelsea music department believes that music is learned best when experienced firsthand.

For this reason, 5th and 6th grade music classes are performance based. The goal is for our students to react to what they hear – to investigate whether a violin, viola cello or bass is the sound that turns on the music inside them. Few of us view the music of the great masters such as Bach, Beethoven or Mozart as our music in 5th and 6th grade. However, when we hear and fell the vibration of an instrument something clicks. The musical material we learn in this young orchestra is meant to connect student and instrument. That is why we play “fun” tunes to start out, tunes the students can hopefully relate to.

Orchestra students in 5th grade are expected to memorize a set of tunes. This ties the ears and the hands to the instrument through repetition. The crucial element to real success on a string instrument is the melding of this ear-to-hand relationship. There is something magical about being able to mentally hear a tune and experience that same music coming out of a string instrument. This musical revelation is the goal of the 5th and 6th grade strings.

Concerts are crucial to motivating students to refine music-making and continue in the orchestra playing their instruments. In 6th grade, there are concerts in December, March and June. The latter two concerts also boast the 5th graders first performances. All of these concerts are in conjunction with other ensembles, either upper grade level orchestras or bands and choirs from the Chelsea Music Department.

This is meant to spur string students to “stick it out” knowing that there is a world of music in which they can continue to participate.

In the end, the goal of the orchestra is to graduate as many students as possible from CHS in this program knowing these students have experienced music at the highest possible level, encouraging a life-long love of music.