As a conductor, you need to be quick on your feet to lead an effective elementary and middle school ensemble rehearsal. Standing in front of a room full of students waiting for direction, there’s one imperative: holding their attention and keeping them on task.
Issues can arise simply because of the traditional seating arrangements for bands, orchestras, and choirs. The physical set-up of most rehearsal rooms creates challenges to monitoring performance and behaviour, and to intervening and providing important feedback to the musicians. To cite just a few issues:
- Students are at varying distances from the conductor. In standard classrooms with desks, teachers easily walk up and down the rows to check student performance. When a student has a question or needs help, the teacher can move closer to that student and then move on to assist others. In ensembles, however, podiums, music stands, equipment, and tight spaces limit how much a conductor can physically manoeuvre while leading a rehearsal.
- Students are grouped by instrument and voice part rather than by skill level or needs. It’s hard to group students who might need more frequent behavioural or learning support if they all play different instruments. Even in a same-level orchestra, student skill levels vary.
- Seating arrangements are often stagnant. When organised by audition results or instrument, students may find themselves in the same row or spot for an entire term. When they sit in the front, closer to the conductor and able to hear more sound from the player behind them, they are often more attentive. For a student in the back row, it’s a different experience, and one that leaves plenty of room for behaviour problems and playing errors.
This leads to what I call Back-row Apathy: lost participation, opportunities and interest due to ensemble geography. What can you do to help students further from the teacher get a front-row experience?
- Tip 1: Frequently rotate seating Even though you want students to grow comfortable with where they’ll sit during a concert, rehearsals are a great time to occasionally change the seating plan. Third-row violins can switch with first-row violins, or woodwind and brass can move to opposite sides of where they usually sit. Use any new seating arrangement to evaluate musical progress and to identify where intervention is needed.
- Tip 2: Have students make action responses even when it’s not their turn to play or sing When the soprano and alto sections sing their parts, have the tenors and basses air-conduct/whisper-count/sing/follow along in the music by tapping the beat on the relevant measures. When the trumpets rehearse their line, the rest of the musicians might hum or tap their parts for that line. Action responses – even silent ones – keep students engaged and on task.
- Tip 3: Place tape on the rehearsal floor to signal ‘no stuff’ zones Instrument cases, bookbags, and lunchboxes take up valuable walking and observing space for a conductor. It’s a good idea to request a tidy workspace, but you can also mark on the floor (for example, with painter’s tape) where student items shouldn’t be. The goal is to guarantee a walking path so that you can keep an eye on all students and provide up-close coaching and feedback.
- Tip 4: Randomly call on sections to play At some point during a rehearsal, play a quick energising game in which the conductor calls on different sections or rows to play part of a passage or to answer questions about a strategy to improve the performance. Now adrenalised by the fun and randomness, students become more alert and anticipate their turns. This is an effective, quick activity for when you’ve hit a lull in the rehearsal.
With intentionality around seating and other strategies for creating engagement, you can improve rehearsal and performance outcomes for all of your musicians. Give them a try, and let me know how it goes!
